I am demiurge

If I were to have a political regime in managing this blog it would probably be a mix between authoritarianism and anarchism. But of course I am in fact a totalitarian - Machiavelli's vainglorious prince. I am sure that if somebody else were to inhabit this universe, I would prefer to "make" him, her, or it a partner and not a subject. Or would I?

My self-seen legitimacy seems to comes from the post-Scholastic Christian, capitalist reverence for private property. I own this blog and most every projected morsel that crosses its digital threshold. It is my private property and my personal project. I put in the intellectual labor and harvest the paltry benefits - namely, appeasement of my graphomania and narcissism.

On the other hand, I am the only citizen of this principality. Which makes me the least and most of all things - the receptacle of all superlatives: best, worst, utmostly sexy, most hideously degenerate, most artistic, most utilitarian, at the apex of intelligence and the zenith of idiocy, and so on. All in-between gradations also belong to me. I am therefore everything and nothing.

A feat of synergy is called for: reconciling the disparate and contrary in order to assert an underlying unity and fashion a consummately inclusive approach. A more conservative, but therefore potentially handicapped, approach is known as ecclecticism: wantonly picking and employing contrary pieces of ideology, but not necessarily reconciling them. It is the keystone of the postmodern methodology and mythology.

If I am a mystic, I devote myself to the occult of the postmodern. Of course, that does not exist, and I end up fabricating, like the three editors, progenitors of the Plan, in Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum. This is the world I created, reside in, and continuously form in my own image. I am the wellspring and the archetype.

I am demiurge.

And yet, this universe is an artifact whose origin and purpose still somehow evade me. It is like the obsidian-black spire in Kubrick's 2001 (whereas Clarke provides at least an interpretation of an elucidation).

Maybe the best I can do is a sophomoric solipsism: I am that I am (Exodus 3:14).

Are people fucking with me?

Seriously. Since posting on the paranoia, I have experienced some strange encounters, which have not allayed my fears. If anything, they have vindicated the age-old sensational craziness; my monomania is flourishing.

When seeking to pass from Redfield Pl. to Walnut Av. in Syracuse, a point-to-point itinerary I pursue regularly, and given the inability to soar through empyrean spaces, one must navigate through or around Thorden Park. Conventional wisdom is firmly of the opinion that perambulation through the Thorden is folly. There are many discreet historical reasons for avoiding the place, especially at night. Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones was raped there. She immortalized her rape and recovery and the eventual conviction and arrest of her rapist in the memoir, Lucky. The title comes from the ever-clever Syracuse police, whoe purportedly claimed that she was lucky, because she was alive; another woman had been brutally murdered in the same spot, years earlier. In addition, a well-loved graduate student, Alec Waggoner, was tragically killed on Thornden Park Ave. in October 2008, very late at night, after colliding with an SUV on his bike. Naturally, these occurrences should induce prohibitive fear into all but the blithe cretin. Nevertheless, there appears to be something wrong with my reckoning ability: I regularly pass through Thorden, at all hours of the day and night, on foot and bike. Yes, I do.

Two days ago, I was meandering meaningfully down Greenwood Pl., less than a block from the edge of the park, when some ragtag youths in a parked jalopy implored me to come to the window of their automobile. They waved and turned up the edges of their mouths, as if to smile, not jovially, but with an unctuous urgency. I was actually running, but that minute sort of walking, as I had been just moments before swinging my apelike arms in concentric circles, and perhaps doing high knees. My new iPod Touch was grasped in my ham hand, and noise-emanating ear-buds plugged my upper orifices. First, I turned around 180 degress to glance at five individuals playing some esoteric kind of handball. They appeared to be deeply focused, and clearly not sending or receiving gestured messages. I wasn't really in the mood for a chat, and wanted to get back to running, so I politely rejected the invitation with a firm double shake of the head. They gesticulated, I shook again, and kept walking. It could have ended there. In fact, it could have ended before it even began. I mean, this sequence of events - recorded herein with as much accuracy as my musty brain can muster - did occur. That which follows is of less tangible stuff. I admit to being slightly shaken by these happenings, and as I converted my walk into a trot and then into a brisk jog, I looked back a couple of times over my shoulder to survey the site of the skirmish. Two of the four gentleman stepped out of the car. Whether or not they looked at me is still an open question. But they might have looked - nay, stared - and there might have been lambent licks of malice and intended harm in their eyeballs. Who knows. I continued to jog, my placidity marginally perturbed, and my adrenaline pumping a little higher than it usually does when I exercise. If you know the geography, you know that Greenwood intersects with Thorden Park Dr., which swoops down and into Beech St. Following Beech, one comes to Madison St., which then goes towards and eventually hits Walnut, precisely at the block I wanted to be on. There is a byway, also Thorden Park Dr., through Thorden, which comes one way the opposite direction I was traveling, from the corner of Madison and Ostrum Av. I took Thorden Park Dr. the wrong way, towards Madison and Ostrum, but as I cruised, senses honed and neurons firing red alerts, I saw (or thought I saw) the jalopy (which was green, incidentally) heading down Beech towards Madison and my destination. At this point, I did something unexpected. To avoid a second confrontation with the thugs, I abandoned the roadway altogether and sprinted through an obscure path, overhung by coniferous giants, in Thorden. This sacred glade, of rectangular shape, sits between Beech, Madison, Thorden Park Dr., and Ostrum. Upon reaching the other side, I had apparently shaken the amateurish stalkers and obviated ambush. This was the first event which reinforced my paranoia, but because it is so shaky and built on unsubstantiated conjecture and borderline irrationality, I decided to tell no one.

The next day - today, January 19, 2009 - any misconception I had ever had about the illegitimacy of my paranoid mania dissipated. Again, I was making the same voyage, from Red to Wall. This time, however, perhaps subconsciously to protect myself from footed rabble, I was flying on tires. The purple Rockhopper--my bike--carries my swiftly and surely, with nothing short of heroic devotion. I was cruising passively and happily through Thorden, admiring the naked branches and sullied snow banks, after a day of silly rain. Of course, a vestige of the prior day's perturbation remained, and I was unusually vigilant. My paranoia hovered like a man-moth but it calibrated my sense-perception. I am rather glad it was there, really. You see, I was rolling along, listening to Carlinhos Brown ("O aroma da vida"), and I was again going the wrong way on Thorden Park Dr.--like Alec, but on a straight, highly visible part of the road, and during the day--and I was about 100 yards from the terminus of the road, where it connected with Madison and Ostrum. All of a sudden, a gray or beige station wagon of unknown make and model, entered my roadway, and started coming towards me, with surprising rapidity, in clear contravention of the posted speed limit. Instead of staying to his or her side of the road (their right side), the psychopath at the wheel evinced a strange predilection for the left side of the street. I swear, the maniac, gaining in velocity all the time, was actually rubbing the curb - my curb - where I was also residing, moving forward on my purple stallion, anxiety building. The game of chicken appeared to me to be unfair, so I capitulated. Braking, I leaped off the bicycle, luckily directly behind a metal light-post, and threw up my arms in offended consternation. What nerve! What homicidal douchebaggery! Heinous fuckery most foul.

People are clearly fucking with me.

I need to be on top of a mountain where I can see everything, 'cause this paranoia is getting old. - Shannon Hoon/Blind Melon (RIP), "Walk".

A phantom menace

I am sometimes paranoid.

The mania superimposes itself upon me in my house, at school, like a shawl of wariness. After having the abode burgled last November (while on Thanksgiving break), I no longer feel protected, my haven raped and ransacked. According to the dubious old wives tale, lightning desists from double-striking the same spot. However, thieves, unlike lighting, are skulduggerous sharks, who smell blood - once violated, a home is blemished as vulnerable. I know the housebreakers are out there with my roommates' X-box, iPod, camera, bag, pillowcase, and aikido gear (luck and having brought all my expensive stuff home saved me from pillaging). They are biding their time, observing, ready to strike again. Now I reside in a constant state of disquiet, serenity lost, and any minor commotion impels me to act impetuously: I stalk down the hallway, armed, ready to attack and defend the sanctuary. Nobody is there. Nobody is ever there.

Paranoia inhabits my car as well. It makes me chary of all of the other automobiles. Really, it is the motorist that I distrust - shifty-eyed, coldly calculating, potentially volatile, violent, or incompetent. Why should I have faith in their capacity to preclude collision? The texters, people exiting driveways and side-roads, buffoons on the telephone, left-lane laggards, the cretin who fails to signal, the ubiquitous white-tailed deer - Bambi with a death wish - they all worry and annoy me to no end.

It is the anonymous individual in the invisible car, nevertheless, who really drives me mad. The worst is on the back roads, of course. That is where the unseen autoist has such fun - tailgating; dallying, falling behind and then rushing up at a furious rate, to halt with frightful precision, mere inches from calamity; using the semaphores to send occult signals, many incomprehensible or openly false; blinding, and tormenting and taunting. From time to time, you get a glimpse of iridescent reflection from an external illumination. A shard of reality; of little use in elucidation. I curse these imperceptible pursuers with violence; the asperity of my vituperation poisons my composure. They rile me up, make me act erratic and devious, to utilize the same subtle chicanery, and beat them at their own game. I enact sudden pivots, circles, I run stop-signs and red-lights, I make wrong turns down forlorn byways. Sometimes I shake them, but they or their stygian compatriots always return. I find no peace.

The paranoia lingers.

Producing and consuming

Trying to be mindful of the pitfall of oversimplification, I postulate two human functions: production and consumption. I consume when I purchase, observe, take in. I produce when I make, do, impart.

It seems that production relies on consumption whereas consumption can occur somewhat independently of production. The layabout glutton comes to mind. Thermodynamics, however, would beg to differ, and on a fundamental scientific level, production equals consumption, necessarily. Science (which grasps at "what is") informs pseudoscience, but I prefer to spin a web of normative philosophy here, leaving science somewhat on the back-burner. Clearly there is a missing link between consumption and production: processing. I take that to be a minor function in the series whose role is to facilitate consumption and production. Herein are some thoughts from an idealist perspective (groping towards "what should be"), about consumption and production.

The Marxist maxim: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." No, I am not an explicit Marxist red Commie fellow traveler (not that that's a bad thing), nor do I think that this aphorism has much value as a determinant of public policy or as a regulation of an economic system. It does, nonetheless, illuminate the question at hand. The first part has to do with productivity and human capital endowment - everything intrinsic to us that makes us more productive (intelligence, social skills, mental stability, aesthetic beauty, etc.). The second part has to do with humanistic psychology's hierarchy of needs and personal fulfillment. The notion of "wasted talent" is a colloquial version of the principle. When the gifted, superlative, or genius person fails to surpass mediocrity, the world's population emits a collective sigh of disappointment. Underperformance is cause for lament.

Naturally, there are positive and negative forms or deployments of production. The "good" and the "bad," as determined by our reason and perceptive senses. Hence, the poetic turn of phrase and the banal imprecation, the lovely song and the out-of-tune piano, Nabakov's Lolita and the propaganda warfare manual, the mythical cure for cancer and the wonder-weapon of biological warfare, and so on. It follows that classifications of good and bad depend on the perspective (Lolita as poetry or morally deprived rot (to, say, the cultural reactionary), the biological weapon as good for inventor bad for foe, etc.). And questions of scientific advancement depend on an idea of advancement. Progress is highly contested. Even art, whose pulchritude is the most clear-cut example of innocent production I can think of, is contested and controversial. It is a grab-bag, widely encompassing, and incapable of escaping its social and human influence. Therefore, Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" can be seen as a symbolic masterwork or pornographic, anti-Christian mythology. The above examples serve to illustrate the inherent duality of things, which qualifies only as a digression in this tract. I press on.

Taking as given that production should be "good," without tackling the question of what is good and what is bad, I suggest that production should be. I mean, people should produce, and those with more brainpower, artistic talent, energy, or any other productive force (which can all be, to some extent, developed and honed during life), should produce more. This makes for a more beautiful, richer, more interesting and inspirational world and society to inhabit. Channeling potential energy into the kinetic energy of construction, formation, manipulation provides the stuff which enkindles the spirit. Art and functionality coupled engender enrichment and amelioration.

The second part of the puzzle has to do with need. Human beings have material needs for the avoidance of death. We also appear to have social needs, such as acceptance, flourishing interpersonal relationships - in short, to love and be loved - ego-based needs, such as self-esteem, and cognitive and creative needs - we need to stimulate that gray and white matter. We need to exercise these functions in order to be "complete" human beings - to sate physical requirements and retain self-awareness, ego, cognitive function, and aesthetic sensibility.

Needs imply consumption, but I argue that they are not fully comprehensible except in conjunction with production. Consumption occurs for the sake of production. Production is naught without the fuel of consumption. However, consumption for the sake of consumption is also gratifying. Food and drink are the most immediate and accessible example - they cause pleasure. Their gobbling and glugging represent a cornerstone of the Epicurean philosophy. In addition to being desirable and pleasurable in their own right, consumption of food and drink can be purposive - directed at production. They are literally fuel and produce the energy from which all action is dependent. They can be shared, they lead to merrymaking, they are necessary. As in all things, moderation is counseled, and minimizing consumption while optimizing energy and happiness outcomes is ideal. The hedonic treadmill illustrates the point. The principle of the hedonic treadmill is that, despite increased consumption, greater happiness is not usually achieved, because, among other things, rising and mutating expectations and desires raise the stakes ever higher. Happiness has surprisingly little to do with the amount of consumption, though there is obviously a lower bound below which squalor implies such deficiency that needs are not met and happiness is elusive. I propose the principle that minimizing consumption of all things while maximizing production is the optimal model for human life.

Minimizing consumption while maximizing production is a lot like "producing more with less." Productivity is key, but so is a sense of justice, need (as opposed to want), and a recognition of the value of production. Justice implies sharing the communal endowment, giving recognition where it is due, repaying debts and dues, while valuing production means recognizing that it constructs and determines our world. A person whose consumption outweigh's their production is a leech on the productive capacity of the planet and the output of others. He or she or it whose production supersedes their consumption has a net positive effect on the world - makes it more gorgeous, more interesting, more pleasing. It seems unlikely that the exchange of consumption and production is one to one. Which makes the enterprise of comparing production and consumption vectors dubious. It is obvious, however, that more production of "good" or positive ideas, artwork, constructions, and actions, results in a more variegated planet, and that we are the communal benefactors of that production. Many productions are, in economic terms, non-rival and non-excludable, meaning it is difficult to obviate the addition of consumers, and the cost of adding an additional consumer is close to zero. Goods which are like this include murals, bridges and dams and other infrastructure, public benefits of education, music and architecture and artistic flourishes to functional constructions, books and libraries, parks, etc. In this way, a person or a small group can produce something whose benefits permeate, unbounded. The rule of thumb: Produce more, consume less.

To put it into perspective, I subject myself to the magnifying glass: What do I produce and consume? For one, I have been undeniably and continuously dependent on my parents my entire life. They satisfy my material needs, whose satisfaction has allowed me to pursue creative, intellectual, and leisurely pursuits of all stripes. They foot the bill, they nurture, they voluntarily enslave themselves to my whims. What do I give back? My progenitors certainly reap some amount of satisfaction from having produced and raised me (Indeed, I am quite stupendous). That was their goal; that it is and has come to fruition in multifarious ways must be a source of great joy and wonder for them. Not only that, but I remain close to them. I am their friend. I love them. The bond between us is mutually or communally produced. The social unit made up of people is one of self-evident interdependence, whose purpose is to satisfy all members and contributers. This unit is part of a self-sustaining and repeating system. I produce the extant unit through belonging and playing my part, and further down the line I am expected to perpetuate the social construct with my own family and offspring, and so on and so on. I consume food, drink, shelter, security of mind and body. I produce thoughts, my brain builds synapse bridges, I develop skills and objective-driven capabilities. I make art sometimes, or all the time, I influence those around me with my words and actions (as they, in turn, influence me). I prepare for the future. I am an investment; my parents and I, my friends, my teachers, and the society are investors in my human capital. I work and produce to pay dividends and repay them their dedication and contribution to my personal development. Work is production, and work has as many guises and purposes as can be formulated by the fecund imagination.

It would appear to be a shame if, with all of the tangible and intangible investments in me, I turned out to be a wastrel, a rogue, or a self-absorbed, thankless jerk, refusing to take responsibility for all that has been given (produced for) me. I am modest about what a good life is, but there are many iterations of a bad life, many of which can be characterized by an improper or unhealthy consumption to production ratio. Consider the layabout, the highly capable welfare recipient, the larcenist, the Paris Hilton, the destructor. A life leaning immoderately towards consumption might appear to be desirable, but it is lacks fulfillment. It does not stimulate the social, creative, and cognitive - the productive - areas of our being.

Happy New Years!

Resolution 1: Produce more, consume less