Private Lives, Public Spaces -- JDK, GLP4.

Self-Portrait -- JD Kruger, GLP4.

Those who can contain knowledge hold power. The expression of

knowledge bridges private life with the public spectacle of performance. Private

lives are lived out on the public stage, where citizens wear masks to conceive

their emptiness. We consume all desire, transmitting the phenomenon of

knowledge through valid expression. In this way, we unbind the slavery of

containment. The transmission of signs is engaged through daily acts of ritual

discourse. The design of life is mastered depending upon the way in which each

one of us dictates our own destiny. God cannot predetermine paths if one

chooses an existential course. Existentialism is a form of humanism. On the

subways, in the streetcars, in the buses, in restaurants, and in cafes, everyone

wears masks, playing roles, depending on their relationship to others.

Internalization is an inferior way of being. However, allowing for some internal

work, we allow the private moment to flourish – nourishment demands

rumination; as Trudeau said, politics does not belong in the bedrooms of the

nation. On the streets, politics plays itself out, in schools in courtrooms, in the

political spheres. Wasted words, wasted thought, alpha waves that fly about in

the middle of the night and day, must be mastered by drawing images on page,

making music through instruments and voice, and poetry and prose on the page.

Private lives and public spaces -- we all maintain a sense of privacy by

controlling our thought bubbles that rise to the surface of the lake and the ocean

and the sea. We travel in the river, always immersed, but we try to sail away

above the rapids with discretion. There is no more tomorrow, there is no

yesterday, just the here and now of existence. Zen-master mind allows oneself

to master oneself; there is no world but the manifest world and spiritualized

existenz with some little moments of communion. Autonomy is the strongest

mode of self-expression and solidarity of the masses must be done so through

having autonomous minds. Direct democracy is the result of private lives that

interact on the public stage and public page, arenas of political expression.

Perhaps it all comes down to money – spiritualized existenz We all exist

within a consumerist society. Everybody wants their large screen t.v.s the

computers with all their gadgets, telephones, dictaphones, mp3 players, etc..

Cybernetic society, cyborgs, people want to be connected to the internet 24-7.

They want the luxuries of life, cars, independent transportation, travel, they want

to have their private money, and yet they want to have a society that exists in an

unselfish way whereby everybody can help protect those in need, welfare,

workfare, jobs that can be in abundance for all. A materialistic society matters

only to those who are greedy for wealth and hunger. Desire only breeds

suffering. The spiritual world is forgotten beyond the bliss of gadgets and toys.

Training the matter, training the mind, should succeed in realizing our dreams,

that is a world without religion, a world where the spirit is unfolding, where matter

and consumerism are not the sole function and focus of civilization.

A note about the schizopolis and autistic civilization: autism is a state of

being whereby the internal and external planes of perception are jarred like

someone listening to radio and watching tv at the same time. Internal and

external planes of perception are jarred causing a disjunction in the psyche of the

individual. Schizopolis is the notion that there is no transcendental signifier that

can unify the city, or city-state as the case may be. Schizophrenic individuals are

highly caught up in the fact that there is no centralizing signifier that can

demarcate the culture and existence. The schizopolis maintains the growth and

rapid transformation while disregarding any focal point that can render itself with

meaning. We are all searching for that transcendental signifier that gives our

lives meaningful coherence.

When all religion has failed any sense of meaningful existence for all

individuals concealed within the cloak of spirituality,something new must replace

it. And yet politics does not seem to be the answer either. We are all in

alienation from one another. A/lien, without ties; yet we all have ties to one

another simultaneously. The ghost in the machine, connected to each other

spiritually through god, the xi force, the life force. So, don’t deny the spirituality of

existence, in your private lives, that can be made public. The image and the

symbol are only collective conscious features that recognize certain experiences

that we have. To give is to take and to take is to give, to render existence

possible by symbolic logic. Symbols are concretions of facts and ideas, and

coherent ideas. Subjectivity is lost in intersubjectivity; and hell, as Sartre says, is

others.

Socialism may be the answer, a proper political response to the situation

at hand. Left-wing socialist discourse is one whereby individuals are sublimated

into society and have their morality contrived for the social benefit of all. Divine

fate leads the individual to be subsumed by society and existence depends on a

social state where we have control over material wealth based on centralized

government. Liberal socialism, something akin to the government in Cuba,

providing free tertiary education, a health care system that is functional for all

those in society -- these things can replace religious attitudes towards life.

Religion mires one in the shadows, politics brings out the ideas of religion into

the argumentative, fighting force of governmental and political power. Politicians

are not just bureaucrats; they have to think ideologically for society to be

functional in a manner of speaking. Act now, for the better of humanity. Think

global; act local.

Private lives, public spaces. Think of it as playing poker. Play all the

cards on the table, as Bob Marley said. However, he also said, don’t rock the

boat. I think there is something to be said for rocking the boat, that leads to

discomfort, and discomfort leads to agitation. Agitation leads to transformation of

society. However, the best move is to keep things outward, manifest,

extraverted, not ecstatic. We have lived far too long in an ecstatic society. It’s

best to muscle your way out of that course. Externalize properly, comment

concern, work for change physically, and act globally, for the betterment of

humanity. We are engulfed within the need to know what and who we are,

through experimentation and self-transformation. Discover yourself through the

inner look, while expressing it properly through communication and minor acts of

spiritual communion.

JDK, GLP4.