Tobacco and the Ancients
If you are conscious as I am, that the Americas( from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego )have been inhabited by a vast and thriving nation of peoples since thousands of years before Christ, then you will know what I mean when I invoke the term 'The Ancients'.
Native Americans were people deeply connected to the rhythm of the earth, her seasons, and our mortal flight through infinite space. This is real. It continues despite whatever fictions one adopts in fantasy of it. It is!
Our modern relationship to it, sadly, often requires a great deal of arduous sorting in order to recognize clearly. Which is strange, isn't it? But it is true!
I theorize that this is mostly due to the distance we are from the source of our food. It is hard to recognize the thriving life forms of a vegetable, herb, spice, or meat when they are packaged up in a grocery store. And of course the vegan fad is most always tied up in some vanity of scientific health( cow-and-chicken-pity? )...not simply a deep, lustful desire for the flesh of plants. I digress.
My point is that most people do not even know what a potato or a rice plant looks like. And that hilarious vegan reaction is not surprising -- when some suckling hipster first sees a living cow, they are struck by the absolute adorable gentleness of this creature! Naturally, it would be further shocking to find oneself born a first-class citizen in the Supersize-Me Industry. But the news is in: The problem isn't beef.
The problem is any person living in a moment's denial. The problem is more deeply an individual's lack of personal desire to transcend, to shovel through all of the shit of propagandized public or poor education, inherited anger and abuse, to assemble( at sometimes painstakingly slow intervals )the entire puzzle that appears to be modern life.
There is no dilemma! There is a cycle. It is happening. It is happening on a scale so much larger( and smaller )than we are that it seems ludicrous that mankind could be lost in the middle of it. Ahhhh! The beautiful oasis and tropicana, the nubile and dripping utopia of Nowhere Togo! I will live here until I die!
We are faced with an opportunity to see ourselves as part of this ancient thing. Painful though I know it is, the context is indeed human.... You must keep in mind that human beings are also animals -- all that marks us different than the rest of the kingdom is our singularly unique ability to comprise the spirits of everything around us! In doing so, we win the ability to be NONE OF THESE THINGS AT ALL, if we so choose. And yet, everybody who tries this exercise finds that the soul remains, the heart continues to beat, and we find ourselves still here.
No wonder bad days suck so bad. ;)
Anyway, that brings me to Tobacco. What is Tobacco? Consider: What is coffee? Existentualize: What is chocolate? An asymptotic limit: What is sugar?
...to be continued... Movie on TV I want to watch. Peace.
Native Americans were people deeply connected to the rhythm of the earth, her seasons, and our mortal flight through infinite space. This is real. It continues despite whatever fictions one adopts in fantasy of it. It is!
Our modern relationship to it, sadly, often requires a great deal of arduous sorting in order to recognize clearly. Which is strange, isn't it? But it is true!
I theorize that this is mostly due to the distance we are from the source of our food. It is hard to recognize the thriving life forms of a vegetable, herb, spice, or meat when they are packaged up in a grocery store. And of course the vegan fad is most always tied up in some vanity of scientific health( cow-and-chicken-pity? )...not simply a deep, lustful desire for the flesh of plants. I digress.
My point is that most people do not even know what a potato or a rice plant looks like. And that hilarious vegan reaction is not surprising -- when some suckling hipster first sees a living cow, they are struck by the absolute adorable gentleness of this creature! Naturally, it would be further shocking to find oneself born a first-class citizen in the Supersize-Me Industry. But the news is in: The problem isn't beef.
The problem is any person living in a moment's denial. The problem is more deeply an individual's lack of personal desire to transcend, to shovel through all of the shit of propagandized public or poor education, inherited anger and abuse, to assemble( at sometimes painstakingly slow intervals )the entire puzzle that appears to be modern life.
There is no dilemma! There is a cycle. It is happening. It is happening on a scale so much larger( and smaller )than we are that it seems ludicrous that mankind could be lost in the middle of it. Ahhhh! The beautiful oasis and tropicana, the nubile and dripping utopia of Nowhere Togo! I will live here until I die!
We are faced with an opportunity to see ourselves as part of this ancient thing. Painful though I know it is, the context is indeed human.... You must keep in mind that human beings are also animals -- all that marks us different than the rest of the kingdom is our singularly unique ability to comprise the spirits of everything around us! In doing so, we win the ability to be NONE OF THESE THINGS AT ALL, if we so choose. And yet, everybody who tries this exercise finds that the soul remains, the heart continues to beat, and we find ourselves still here.
No wonder bad days suck so bad. ;)
Anyway, that brings me to Tobacco. What is Tobacco? Consider: What is coffee? Existentualize: What is chocolate? An asymptotic limit: What is sugar?
...to be continued... Movie on TV I want to watch. Peace.
posted by Just Greg at Monday, February 09, 2009
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