Avoiding Change

Simple thoughts
Thoughts of the future
And of the past
Mingling together in chaotic paradise

What I am
Who I was
What I want to be
All aspects breathing down my neck

Afraid of the future
Afraid of what might be
Fearful of what everyone else has
Hoping that my life might be different

Avoiding change hasn’t worked
But what if changing doesn’t either

What if I wake up one day and realize
That my whole life has passed me by
That I am no further ahead than when I started

What will I do then?
The white light seems pretty appealing now
How will it look in 10 years?

I just don’t want to end up staring down
The barrel of a gun just waiting for the end
With tears in my eyes
And questions in my heart

- Island of Blue, "A Drifting Mind with Simple Thoughts"
- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/poem/481086-A-Drifting-Mind-with-Simple-Thoughts-by-Island-of-Blue#sthash.8Wl5WtaS.dpuf

Social Distance - The" System Generated" Solution

I hear the pizza delivery guy coming.
He’s coming around the bend.
And I haven’t seen my toes since, God knows when.
I’m stuck in Fatso Prison, and time keeps dragging on.
But thin people keep movin’, and I weigh more than San Antoine.

When I was just a baby, my mommy said
“Being fat is hard.
Always eat your veggies and not a brick of lard.”
But I ate a can of Crisco just to make her sigh.
Now when I see thin people jogging, I hang my head and cry.

Oh, I bet there’s thin folks eating
tofu and salad.
And I bet they’re not singing
this retarded ballad.
But I know I had it coming.
I know I can’t be thin.
But thin people don’t have to diet
and I just can’t win.

Well if they freed me from Fatso Prison
If a thin body was mine
I’d bet I’d finally cross the race’s finish line.
Far from Fatso Prison.
That’s where I want to be.
And those sanctimonious thin people
would never again bother me.

- ladyjanew, "Parody of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues"

Inconceivable!

Heraclitus:
The world continues to be in a state of flux ,
Where strife (Nekos) and love (Philia) ,
Are the dividing and uniting forces in control ,
To ensure the balance and unity of the whole !
Harmony is the union of opposites ;
Just as the high and low musical notes combine ,
To create music and melody in our life !
The principle of the universe is becoming and change ,
And with his dynamic metaphysics Heraclitus tried to delve ,
The ultimate reality behind all things as he had felt !
Next we move on to Parmenides and his philosophy of ‘being’ ;
Directly opposed to Heraclitus’ notion of change and ‘becoming’ !

PARMENIDES (515 BC – 450 BC) :
Born in Elea a city south of present-day Naples ,
At the age of 65 years visited Athens ,
And was interviewed by the youthful Socrates ,
- as Plato says ! He was the founder of the Eleatic School ;
Declared all changes to be mere illusory , - and not to be fooled !
In reality it was only changelessness , - only a state of ‘being’ ;
Far removed from Heraclitus’ change and flux , and ‘becoming’ !
Since for ‘being’ to change and ‘become’ , it must have come , -
From a being , or non-being , or nothing !
To come from a ‘non-being’ or ‘nothing’ was impossible !
But if from a ‘being’ , then it has come from itself ;
And has always been an ‘identical being’,
- Parmenides strongly felt ! It was evident then ,
that from being only being can come ,
Hence there was only one eternal , indivisible being , which was continuous !
Moreover , he declared ‘being’ and ‘thought’ were one !
For what cannot be thought cannot be ,
And what cannot be , that is ‘non-being’, - cannot be thought !
‘Thought’ and ‘being’ for him were identical !
All change for Parmenides being inconceivable ,
- The world of sense he declared was an illusion !
Sense perception reveals a world of plurality and change ;
An illusory world of opinion and appearance !
Later , Bertrand Russell in his ‘History of Western Philosophy’,
Suggested Parmenides was a victim of linguistic fallacy !
Yet he gives him credit for the ‘invention of Metaphysics based on logic!’

Both Melissus and Zeno as pupils of Permenides ,
Continued his traditions in his Eleatic School of Philosophy !
Zeno’s through his four paradoxes on movement tried to demonstrate ,
The indivisibility and unchanging reality without change !
Zeno with his words of magic, is reputed to have laid the foundation of Logic !

- Raj Nandi, "Ancient Greek Philosophy Continued : Heraclitus and Parmenides"

Raising the Wind

In the sombre woods of ancient Dodona
Was a Dorian temple by expert hand built,
No other in this world could compare to its beauty,
Surrounded by statues of silver and gilt.
Laden with gifts appeared kings from afar
To honour the priestess, her speech divining,
Like hermits they huddled in fasting and prayer
Awaiting their fate, outside they were pining.
But fate and the future have eyes unbound,
And lots when cast can quickly turn round,
A word is enough, if sent from the heavens...
How many thrones have been toppled and tossed,
And how many leaders' minds have been lost
For failing to heed that old woman's words.

- Aleksander Stavre Drenova, "The Oracle of Dodona"
Sacred Oak, Dodona
The sound of the rustling leaves of the sacred oak delivered Zeus' messages at the Dodona oracle.

To Pluck the Day

To pluck the day, its budding life,
Is thus to chance belong,
For blossoms still alive today
May be to-morrow gone.

To float up to the skies today,
And touch sun 'fore his leaving,
Is chance to dream, though now awake,
And never cease believing.

Though life in morning's most alive,
And in thy veins runs warmer,
Still tarry not, or thou may miss
What waits thee round the corner.

Though shyness is allure, my love,
Silence can love entomb;
Some blossoms once they've closed, my dear,
Cannot again re-bloom.

Please heed this all from he who knows,
And learned with such a cost,
For once I slept in past her dawn,
And, thus, her love I lost.

Carpe diem: Etymology; Latin ('to pluck the day')

by jason, "awake thee 'fore the dawn"

Surplus value vs Surplus enjoyment

Herein lies the difference from Marxism: in the predominant Marxist perspective the ideological gaze is a partial gaze overlooking the totality of social relations, whereas in the Lacanian perspective ideology rather designates a totality set on effacing the traces of its own impossibility. This difference corresponds to the one which distinguishes the Freudian from the Marxian notion of fetishism: in Marxism a fetish conceals the positive network of social relations, whereas in Freud a fetish conceals the lack ("castration") around which the symbolic network is articulated.

Görlitzer Bahnhof

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