Think About The Way II

Minneapolis — Well, the hammer is finally falling. Whether it is some echo from previous head-expanding trips or a new phenomenon in its own right, the next generation of stone-cold cripples is finding out exactly where it is at these days. Unfortunately for us, the years upon years of careful grooming and primping by the Old Guard, as it were, are turning out not to be worth as much as we were told. There are very few people who are finding a lot of contentment in the drudgery they have been forced to endure, and those who are humming along in a fine manner will soon find that their mindlessness will force them to take the next exit a bit prematurely.

This is not a localized phenomenon by any means. Half a world away, a war rages for no good reason; our generation is going to get a version of Viêtnam to call our own. A World War is being threatened over it, and when an aging Russian president crazy on vodka points MIRVs at populations centers all over the world, you had better listen. Civility in all realms of debate is rapidly evaporating, and the foundations of rational discourse are disintegrating.

Meanwhile, scientists say that they have nearly cured gravity, that finding life on other planets is only a fortnight away, and as physics carries forward, it resembles more and more a Tibetan mandala. Yes, the more they know, the less they understand. Truly, the words of those who lived and died thousands of years before we had to worry about such things as International Peace-Keeping forces and Saturation Bombing campaigns. Things were a bit more sane then, because the evils of dehumanization had not yet occurred.

Dehumanization: what exactly does that term mean? It is this: writing on an electronic apparatus, because it is too time-consuming, too unimportant, or too painful to simply see a person. It is disembodied voices telling you to push 1 for your account balance, 2 for transfers, and # to end the call. It is assembling a vast collection of compact discs and digital tapes without ever seeing a live band, a chamber orchestra, or a Shakespearean play that has not migrated to the big screen but has stayed where it should be, on the stage. It is leading to the many psychoses of the latter half of the 20th century, as people forget what it is like to relate to others, to be empathetic, to be human.

It is only this that can explain the widely diverging paths that the world is taking. And as anybody knows, a mind divided against itself cannot stand. It doesn't matter what form it takes: the heart and the mind at war, the happiness of others versus your own happiness, the good of the many against the good of the few. They all lead to breakdowns, depression, insanity. Extrapolated to a global scale, it leads to the Apocalypse.

It had been a couple of months since my Homecoming fiasco, but in terms of mentality it could have been light-years. I moved out of the crackhouse I was living in when a perpetual antagonist from the likes of April 1998 and other, previous rants against all things political. Kevin's roommate, the ineffectual and highly immature (and soon to be former) U-DFL chair had decided that living with his parents was a much better option than arguing with Kevin constantly. This, of course, created a vacuum that needed to be filled, and I stepped up to the plate.

Meanwhile, the academic atmosphere continued its grim slide. I had survived the quarter with a "C" average: an A, an F, and a little "To be continued . . ." on my transcript. Of course, the learning was not really to be continued, the problem being only that a final project was not completed. What was to be continued was the bureaucracy, the rote, arbitrary assignment of a grade. There was little connection between the knowledge gained and the replacement of that "I" with another irrelevant letter. Not surprisingly, I wasn't too concerned.

But people . . . . ah, yes, people. Homecoming had found me trudging along University Avenue with a few people that were the bane of my existence up until then. I chose incorrectly at that time, it seems, and I was lucky to have been able to reverse that decision when I moved to my new apartment. Waffle was still in China, Mr. Spiczka still in Texas, Ross still drifting high above Savage City. Other, no less important people were more easily available, being within ten miles of my physical location, but things were still odd. Venerated at some times, chided at others, drawing the ire and admiration of those who saw me pull crazy stunts . . . the duality was there as well. It only accelerated until I found firestorms brewing on my porch and 3 AM, and then, poof. The duality was gone, the Many being reduced to the One, as if in some kind of Zen trance.

Instead, stories of Christmas. Stories of going to church in tears, stories of families ripped apart by distance, ripped apart by rivalry. Always stories of failed expectations, of shallow conversation, of plastering over reality for the sake of some holiday that nobody understands. It doesn't matter what religion you are; celebrating Jesus's birth probably didn't involve the three wise men bearing gifts of electric razors, five-day movie rentals, and jugs of wine. Gold, yes; Incense, yes; but not tickets to an air combat simulator.

Then, the inevitable quarrels. Time to go to Midnight Mass, always been a family tradition, literally tearing down the walls in a futile attempt not to go, or meekly acquiescing to give the patina of a big, happy family. The accusing shouts come next, religious persecution, "your heart's not really in it, why can't you pretend better," sitting through a sermon that Father MacKenzie wrote, only to end it in front of a fireplace where nobody speaks, or perhaps waiting by a window with a long face, waiting for it to end. Or perhaps a sarcastic comment. A commercial comes on the television: "Kids, what do you do when somebody asks you to do drugs?" "Hell, yes," comes the reply, the contempt from the adults, think about the kids, for chrissakes.

I had fought those battles years before, and so I didn't have to worry about nagging, yelling, or poor manners. At least not when it came to any of the basic arguments. My family's movie was one of utter destruction, of one where everybody lived apart and nobody was happy, where even the safest, most veiled comments usually brought a tirade from some member of the family. Many times it was me, and the remainder it was my mother, but this year my brother started to let things fly as living alone with my father had started to push him over the edge. Only broken families go out for dinner on Christmas, and so that is what we did, dutifully filling our role. I was certainly happy I went home as I stared at the walls in my mother's new, unfurnished apartment. I was lucky to have a bed; she didn't.

This was understandable, from my point of view. Then why was it that no matter where I went, no matter who I talked to, no matter how long-distance I called, it was the same story? Tears, only tears. Perhaps surly British youths or missionaries in Lhasa had the answer: screw this pretense garbage. Why fight it? With everything going to Hell in a handbasket, from the 2,000-year old Catholic Church to a three-month old student government administration, why not just get out of the way? Surely, it would be far easier, and less painful. Just hide in a corner, and hope that the debris doesn't finish you off as well. Of course, it isn't very likely that you survive the fall of Western Civilization, but didn't somebody do it in The Postman? Brad Pitt, maybe, or some other actor whose name fails me now. Well???

As the bile rose in me, I realized that there was a reason. There are few things as good for coming up with deep thoughts than sitting alone in a hospital, or zooming along Wright County Road 75 doing about 90, listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young cry in D minor about those lads in Ohio. Few songs hold the raw power that Ohio has. Those four people who died when the National Guard decided to open fire on a bunch of unarmed protesters certainly weren't giving up. They weren't going to sit back and watch as the Man, working through the Military-Industrial complex, brought freedom to its knees starting in a hamlet called Southeast Asia. No; they were going to fight, yell, scream, throw rocks, and get bayoneted while giving their all. In many ways, we are in better shape than they were. In many ways, we are in worse shape. But there is still hope.

Three words. That's all there is to fighting, and winning. Very Zen, yes, but that metaphysical basis is correct in many ways. But not all, which is why my Zen Companion is floating towards New Orleans as we speak. But still, three words.

Attention. Every moment chants perfect sutra. It is insulting to God, Allah, Buddha, or even the laws of physics to say that something shouldn't have happened. If something shouldn't have happened, then it wouldn't have happened. Gravity doesn't decide to take a day off, light doesn't slow down to 30 km/h when it is tired of running around at, well, the speed of light. Everything happened as it should. If only we paid attention to the subtleties, we might see. Hell, we don't even have the luxury of being able to act in the present. It is a parlor trick to prove that there is no present, a trick I have mastered, but even that is disingenuous. The mere fact that we are human means we have that .05 second delay before we act. We are always living from the past, never able to catch up with what is really happening, unless we are masters. If we truly see, then we can learn, and act.

Patience. Nin. Patience is not only sitting around on your ass like a stone Buddha. Patience is knowing when your time has come, through that darn Attention, and then acting. It may be patient to wait until the weather is perfect to cultivate your fields, but you will wait forever and thus you will starve. Patience is governing your emotions; it is not squelching them. Sometimes it is right and wise to go nuts, to shout "Nixon to the Wall! Long live Spiro Agnew!" at the drunks coming out of the Press Bar. Sometimes it is the time to play MarioKart, stone drunk, and laugh about the obscene prices in Target. And sometimes it is correct to stand to the side and buy your boxers from K-Mart when the time is right. Do not rush, do not tarry.

Transconsciousness. This last bugger is the tricky one. It is not sub-conscious, it has nothing to do with Freud's trip of Id and Superego. When you combine Attention and Patience, you have Transconsciousness. When you first learn to ride a motorcycle, or drive a stick, that bastard clutch taunts you. I know, o Lord how I know. It is a surly bastard, making you jump or stall altogether. In the beginning, you have to put all of your mind to letting that sucker out correctly, making all your motions smooth and connected. And still you screw it up half the time. But after a while, even when it is the beginning of spring and you haven't ridden that piece-of-shit motorcycle since the engine froze last August, well, you just do it. You have forgotten the consciousness, but the real lesson remains. If you want to ride a motorcycle perfectly, become a perfect rider and then ride naturally, without thought, without effort.

It is quite elusive. It would be easy to say that this is subconscious, but that does it no justice. Breathing is subconscious, but you don't learn how to breathe. The unfortunate connotation of "sub" being below is the problem. Breathing has nothing to do with Attention, or Patience. However, when somebody is coughing, well, you give them a glass of water. Without a thought. That is Transconsciousness. It is not an elaborate flow-chart to work through: "A. Bob is hacking up his uvula, do I go to B. or C.? Well, Jesus, let me think about this . . ."

Yes, please, laugh aloud. But the flow-chart game is easy to fall into. Our entire culture has been fooled into believing this. Now, there are two generations of those emotional cripples: Generation X, who were raised in a plastic and formica world without much meaning, are dealing with their own lack of self-worth. And their parents, the Baby Boomers, who were told that to raise children who would not lack self-worth they should read Dr. Spock, going through the decades until their divorce prompted them to read 101 Lies Men Tell Women, complete with the answers. Nothing about Attention, or Patience; just case study after case study, and what worked for Pat and Bob can certainly work for you, in the exact same ways. Just follow the directions and you will solve everything and live happily ever after, follow the script. Poor saps, the script is what go them into trouble in the first place . . .

And me, yes, me, the one who openly told anybody two years ago that it was my goal to learn everything that there was in the world and then to forget it. I misunderstood that Zen saying. I was letting knowledge pass through me like a sieve, not letting it make any impact whatsoever, and what I did keep I rattled off without knowing what it related to, or how it related to me. The purpose of Transconsciousness is to let knowledge pass through you, yes, but on the way to mould you into a more perfect shape. The forgetting means that you will not get hung up on particulars, on specifics. Forgetting means that you will not compare one situation to another to find a solution, because setting up what you like against what you don't like in your mind is the end of sanity, and comparisons are indeed odious.

I was blind to this, however. I thought that the act of forgetting proved something. I had made it my goal to learn everything, but I had forgotten that my ultimate goal was the perfection of character. And when people only valued me for my knowledge, not for any other parts of me, I was indignant. However, how could they see anything else? My God, I had admitted that the acquisition of knowledge was my goal, thinking that because I was not driven by acquiring money or power, that I was somehow better than others. I had forgotten that all of those are simply the means to an end. Those people who saw nothing of my personality, my other beliefs, did not see them because I had discredited the other aspects of my being myself. I was to blame.

Everything is set up to reinforce this message. University teaches knowledge for the sake of passing a test and getting a diploma, not for any other reason. A class that demands that the students learn how to write in the styles of other authors is not concerned with the gifts of each individual. It is concerned with the illusion of teaching, for it is far easier to judge whether somebody can properly ape the lowercase rants of e.e. cummings than it is to judge each student's essays, individually, on the question of whether they have Quality or not. Quality that comes from the person, not the method. It is like telling Picasso to paint some pictures that aren't so damned warped. Jesus H. Christ, what kind of world is it when some fiend can be original? . . .

A person like Picasso paid attention to his surroundings. He saw. Then, he did not start with a normal portrait and then think of ways to fuck it up to piss off the classical art scholars. He did not consciously warp and goo and twist and misshape. He painted the way that he did simply because that method contained more Quality for him, and so that's what he went with. Cubism was the name, but the method was purely Transconscious. It could have been called Edsel, for all it mattered. Now, however, with its name and thorough study by "experts," it is ready to be copied so that young artists can learn to imitate. Not only are they imitating somebody with more talent than them, but with a different kind of talent. That's why it shouldn't be copied.

There is very little Transconsciousness today. Bill Clinton wasn't patient with his horny urges. Slobodan Milosevic is not attentive to the differences in culture and religion between Serbs and Albanians, and how they can live in peace. Boris Yeltsin is probably drunk as he undergoes sextuple-bypass surgery, another liver transplant, and a free makeover by an undertaker. He isn't conscious of the light of day, much less attentive or patient. On and on, ad infinitum, the ignorance and impatience ripping through organizations and institutions. It is easier to come up with an incorrect half-assed solution, a band-aid, or ignore it altogether. So much easier. Dehumanize it, forget consciousness, stuff it in a bottle and leave it for tomorrow's suckers.

The battle starts here. Having left too much value hanging by a thread, almost lost to the grand indifference that is life at the fin de siècle, the goal of Transconsciousness is once again the ultimate end. A perfect character, by definition, does no wrong, and though everybody always fails in the attempt to become perfect, it is the attempt that matters. While not everything has Quality or great value, there are some things, some people, some ideals, and some beliefs that do. Those define the battle for life, and the battle will be joined. What has been learned must be un-learned, re-learned, and then forgotten again, leaving its permanent imprint. It will be done, or there will be nothing to save.