Archive for 2019

Is There Any Truth To The Tower Of Babel?

The story about the Tower of Babel is pretty historically accurate when you realize that before Judeo-Christianity came onto the scene people weren’t that patriotically attached to their own deities.

Basically, gods and cultures weren’t connected. “The one you call Pluto, we call Hades. The one you call Krishna, we call Herakles,” the Greeks said under Alexander the Great as he conquered Central Asia, “We’re all speaking the same language at our core.”

All of that changed when Exodus 20:5 was written down:

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.”

Before that was written you’d have a hard time telling apart someone from the time of polytheism and someone who now says, “I’m not religious, just spiritual – I will always believe in a higher power.”

I nerd out about great business strategy so this isn’t a bash on Judeo-Christianity in any way, quite the opposite. As John Gray wrote, “Modern politics is just a chapter in the book of religion.” And it can be argued that modern business is as well.

Us humans are religious animals, and we’re not the only primates who are. Even elephants are religious, so who in their right mind would hate on someone using science to reach us at the core of what we are and always will be? That’s just being smart. Apple Inc. could learn a thing or two from Judeo-Christianity.

Or, you could say they already did. We all did actually. Listen closely the next time an app or website makes it harder for you to leave or to watch a video on another website, you can practically hear the AI-gods in the machine whispering, “Stay, you shall not bow down to them or worship them…”

As someone once joked, “When YHWH/Jehovah said I am the one true god all of the other gods died laughing.”

Because this is all about not having competition. You can’t have someone all to yourself without first telling them that you’re the one, and that talking to others is wrong. You can’t have someone all to yourself without being jealous.

creation arose from nothing

yes

once upon a time, before time
there was nothing, nothing at all

no palm trees, no ackee fruit
no birds, no fish, no thorns, no roses
and no one to give them to

no dirt, no water, no land, no sky
no air, no moon, no stars

there was nothing, nothing at all

no light, no darkness, no space, no time

and then there was something
imagine that

a rose grew from nothing
some would call that a miracle

but what else would you call a new beginning
but a miracle of sorts?

a rose grew from nothing
and as it shook off its dust the dust fell together
and created the first fire, stars and starlight

who would have ever imagined that
fire could be made from mud
starlight born from dust fall

and then there was more
more starlight, more stars

and still more, trillions even
they filled the nothing
imagine that

countless stars once shined
until they grew weary of this dance of oblivion
and died

and in their death they exploded
their final showing a grand performance
that ushered in new dust, offsprings of themselves

and the new dust was different
for, unlike them, it came from something
it was filled with possibilities

after star explosion new dust fell together
and became new starlight, our starlight the sun

and in its youthful grasp of anything’s possible
the new dust fell anew together again and again
and became a funeral of sun-worshipers

and we call one of these pious spheres of harmony
“earth”

for it means
forever falling to be blessed
forever fulfilled

and at first earth was full

filled with water, land, and sky
land-fire and sky-fire
and a sour smelling wind

and that was all it was filled with

’till the sky-fire fell and hit the water
over and over and over again
and from that violent marriage of fire and water
plants were born and they grew in the water

and these first plants had children
and they had children and so forth
until the plants’ great grandchildren
and their children were so far removed
that they forgot their parents’ stories
and their faces

their violent habits, their moods and rages
and became plants of their own

some plants left the water for land
some embraced the water becoming fish

some fish having forgotten
the stories of their parents too
left the water and became lizards
hybrid children of land and water

some looked up and in their curiosity
grew wings and became birds

some simply embraced the land growing fur

and some of these furred children
great grandchildren of fire and water
lived in trees and they were smarter than all

smarter than their siblings who stomped on land
who swam in water and who flew on sky

all of their siblings knew they were smarter
because at first only they could make song
meaningful song

that contained all
warnings of dangers, bonds of family
images of things seen, and forms yet to be

and these furred children realized that
yes, they were smarter than all
and in their ego they fell from the trees

and lived on land, by the water
and under the sky, amongst all of their siblings

and in their ego they named themselves
“human”

and after a while, from them came us
you and me, and that’s everything

from nothing came nothing
and that’s everything

for we’re nothing

but grand clay offsprings of dust, water, and wildfire
eventually shaped by curiosity, ego, and time

we’re nothing
if not human and song

yes

once upon a time, before time
there was nothing, nothing at all

and now, here you are
a rose from nothing

a new beginning
a miracle of sorts

American Men Are Going To Foreign Countries To Find Wives Because They Want To Make America Great Again

MAGA is the creed of mostly white men because when anyone yells that they want to, “Make America great again,” what they’re usually yelling is that they want to make themselves great again.

This is why mostly white men can also be heard chanting, “Make Britain great again!” or, “Make Australia great again!” It all means the same thing: Make Me Great Again!

American (and British, and Australian) men are going to foreign countries to find wives because they want to turn back time and live in a century where White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) are great husbands just for being white and male. In essence, they don’t want to live in the 21st century.

For all its faults America is at least the 21st century for a lot of its peoples; women, people of colour, anyone’s who LGBTQ+. Unlike with Thailand, the Philippines, and many other foreign countries. And for men who don’t want to live in the 21st century these countries that haven’t quite reached it are the answer to all of their problems.

To put things simply, American men are going to foreign countries to find wives because the countries they’re going to haven’t truly advanced to a century where a woman doesn’t need to marry a man to feed herself. They’re going to foreign countries to find wives because they miss the subservience that comes with a woman needing to marry them to eat. Because they miss when America was great.

American men are going to foreign countries to find wives because there they are great again.

creation, in a lover’s hands

in my village we have this saying, that
“we answer the earth with our being.”

that being all of this
all of us

this being that
if you’re just going to forget everything
at least remember that today it asked,
“what does a lover’s hands create?”

and our father, absent as he is, silent as he is
pokes the embers of our dying fires with a stick
trying to get a little more heat out of them
to warm the clay

and our mother rubs her belly and says,
“a home safe enough to be born into silly.”

and our cousin inspects our hands before we eat
making sure they’ve been cleansed
of mud by water

and the water tumbles down into the streams,
into the rivers, the lakes, and the oceans,
making sure a part of us has travelled the world
even if we don’t

and the moon reflects on the waters, listening
staying silent as all the pieces of us break
down into nothing through constant movement

as always

and the grass rustles in the wind
bringing the faintest scent of salt water and us with it
to a place that only knows of palm trees

and a palm tree’s shadow extends to cover us
from the sun’s accusations as the day gets long

and an ackee falls off a tree after having ripened
and the fruit’s seeds embrace the earth after a while

and the seeds grow into trees
and their branches grow

and our father, the father, breaks them
to give us a little heat in the night
to warm the clay

and the fire that was made was creation
is creation, for it still burns

and the weak mud realizes that as it hardens
it is difficult to live without surviving humiliation
without hardening
and so it does

maybe this is what creation was all along
our father, silent as he is, speaking with his hands

that when you gain something you lose something
that the mud loses its innocence the moment it embraces the fire

beautiful though the light’s warmth is after a while
the mud, now clay, will always wonder, which is better
its former innocence or the hard life it’s living now

maybe this is what creation was all along
our mother, smiling as she does, as she creates life within her
as we pester her with questions about who created life

maybe this is what creation was all along
our cousin bearing our hands while pointing to water
showing us the answer to all
“that is us”

too late do we realize that

we are pools of water
and as the rain continues we get deeper with age
until we realize that the leaves that land on us
never quite disturb us as they used to
when we were much shallower

and the moon reflects on us, listening
and the grass rustles with the wind
and the trees bear fruit

and the earth too listens

the sounds of our movements
from rivers to oceans
imprinting into the lines of its many palms
darkening them
as it remembers our being forever

The Tortoise Enjoys The Race More Than The Hare

Being bad at something you truly love is one of life’s secret blessings. You’re given that much more time to focus on it than those who get it easily. The road is that much longer.

Self-Disrespect And Self-Forgiveness

The more chances you give yourself the less respect you’ll have for yourself.

You’ll begin to ignore the standards that you’ve set for yourself exactly because you’ll know that you’ll always give yourself another chance. You’ll know that no matter what you won’t walk away.

You’ll get comfortable with depending on self-forgiveness. Thus turning self-forgiveness into a crutch comparable to self-avoidance rather than into a motivation for change.

Never ever get comfortable with disrespecting yourself.

glory child flow | 002

I Was Never A Tourist

The difference between the tourist and the traveller is that the traveller allows themselves to be so shaped by where they are at the moment that they can rightfully say, “I’m not just in Toronto, I am Toronto. I’m not just in love, I am love. I’m not just in the abyss, I am the abyss.”

Unlike the tourist, the objective of the traveller is to not just be moved but to be remade.

And to then shun where and who they are completely so that they can move on to a new way of being, a new city, a new them. Because the traveller knows that you can’t ever truly be in a new city, in a new moment, in a new you, when an older has even a bit of your soul.

The objective of the traveller is to one day look back and say, “Not only did I see everything, I was everything. Not only was I alive, I was life. I was never a tourist.”

“For in my eternal search for something greater, I’ve left too many cities, too many lovers and friends, too many daily routines and ways of living that I was still madly in love with for me to have such a half-hearted title. I am a traveller. I pack my entire life with me when I move, my entire being, I leave nothing behind, not even love.”

The difference between being a tourist and being a traveller is exactly how much of your heart you carry with you.

‘Get Out’ – Alternative Ending

The art dealer successfully possesses the main character’s body but he quickly dies because a cop pulled him over on his way out of town and he reached for his ID a little too quickly.

All of the other party attendees die under somewhat similar circumstances because none of them had been taught as children on how to act in a black body so as to not be shot and killed for something trivial and mundane, like sitting on their own couch.

Overcome by this news and the bewildering fact that being black is its own horror movie the Armitage family members–each having already possessed a new body by now–make terrible financial decisions, lose everything, and live out the rest of their lives as a black family suffering under the crushing weight of poverty.

With the way their country is set up against anyone in a black body, the Armitage family never escapes poverty and they realize that their brain transplant experiments have successfully ruined the lives of their children, their children’s children, and so on.

And, finally, after having exhausted all other possibilities, the Armitage family accepts their predicament and tries to make their country better for black people, for themselves. They fail miserably and become bitter.

The end.