Equality

The symbols that create the words Teach Peace are: Christian Cross; Male and Female; Jewish Star; Islamic Star and Crescent; Baha'i 9 Pointed Star; Peace Sign. Additional religious symbols are: Taoist Yin Yang; Buddhist Wheel; Hindu Om; Native American Indian Kokopelli; Zia Sun; Sikh Khanda; Indian Jainism; Pagan Pentagram; Atheist Atom; Unitarian Chalice

“...it is difficult for me to call others bigots when I am one myself. I tell people at once, to warn them, that I suffer from deformation of character. But the truth is I am sick unto death of four thousand years of males telling me how rotten my sex is. Especially it makes me sick when I look around and see such rotten men and such magnificent women, all of whom have a sneaking suspicion that the four thousand years of remarks are correct.”

That piece of a paragraph in “The Women's Room” always jumps out at me and smacks me round the head, for I, too, am sick to death of life revolving around men, even though things have changed a hell of a lot since Marilyn French wrote her seminal novel.

But to me, it seems that it is much more subtle remarks that are made now about how rotten women are.

And (and I really hate myself for saying this but it is part of the insidious poison of society, I think, that has made it so) I have real difficulty in seing magnificent women.

Sure, there are some. But I look around me and the men are still rotten, but the women, it seems, have rotted as well, become men in order to be more equal.

It's totally understandable, I've done it myself, indeed there are times when I think I am more male than female. After all, it was once said about me, in my defense; “She's more man than you'll ever be and more woman than you'll ever know”. But I still think the whole deal sucks.

Instead of half the world ignoring things that matter, everyone does.

I'm generalising again of course, but sometimes I really wonder what went wrong. The revolutionary ideals of the Sixties seemed to get buried or maybe they did just get institutionalised into something else to rebel against.

Except, no one wants to rebel anymore. Every one just wants to be cosy and warm and stick their heads in the sand or, more likely, into their latest gadget.

Which, of course, is what I do myself 90% of the time so it's highly hypocritical of me to rant like this the other 10% of the time. I justify it with the weak excuse that at least I do think about things occasionally.

The passage I was quoting earlier goes on to talk about feeling like an outlaw and a criminal, the belief that oppressed people should be able to resort to “criminal means to survive. Criminal means being, of course, defying the laws passed by the oppressors to keep the oppressed in line.  Such a position takes you scarily close to advocating oppression itself, though. We are bound in by the terms of the sentence. Subject-Verb-Object. The best we can do is turn it around. And that's no answer, is it?”

She (French writing as Val's character) always gets me with that because I can't think of a better answer, an escape from the ties that bind, one that will actually work.

No way of enhancing society and life rather than destroying it by slowly eroding our souls, which is what happens to all of us at present. Worn out, worn down, worn into worms crushed under foot.

I suppose the only way out lies with the individual at present, in turning one's back on it all, but how can anyone do that when the very thing that is killing us softly and destroying our independence is the same thing that provides sustenance and actually sustains life as we know it?

Please note neither of these images belong to me but they felt so appropriate to this post that I appropriated them!!!  Please don't sue!

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I have just finished re-reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”.

I sat up and looked around this room which contains my life, more or less, and got confused.

What is it that all this is really about? Pirsig's descent into a reincarnation spiel in his after-word always throws me into a tailspin.

Not because I disagree, I don't, a very large part of me accepts reincarnation as pure and simple fact.

But how can anything in this crazy, fucked-up life be pure and simple?

Is anything any more? Was it ever?

I guess life must have always been complex given that human beings are complex organisms.

But that is a scientifically produced fact and are they really valid on their own or simply (there's that word again, where does it keep coming from?) an illusion,a dream of reality that is easier to handle than reality itself?

I often feel as if what is theoretically, or, better word, collectively alleged or supposed to be reality, is in fact not real at all, just a dream and the surreal and unreal are what are really real but everyone spends their entire time avoiding them because dream reality is more comfortable and easier to deal with.

Which also explains why I keep wanting to run away from people and things. That reality smells phoney, fake, a game of let's pretend for everyone.

Or maybe I'm just plain scared and that is all there is to it. Scared of being the same as everyone else.

And yet, scared of being different.

I wish I could figure out what it is I am afraid of.

Sometimes I think I know but then sometimes I spend all my time trying to be part of the dream reality of society, the mass-produced, media-marketed dream that surrounds me.

And here, in this room, is everything that supports that. I don't even know how much of this is stuff I actually like or things I'm supposed to like to be normal or interesting.

Sometimes, all that matters is that it is mine and I love it for that, other times I'm frustrated because something is not right and that is when I smell the lies, the fakeness.

Why should it matter, if it's all mine? Do I care that it is not right because it is not right for ME? Or because it's not right for the image of me that the dream reality demands?

And if it is for the image then it's nothing to do with me, but to do with everyone else instead....

Am I trying to prove something to everyone else or to myself?

The problem is I don't know how much of myself is me and how much is construct anymore.

But then, I don't know if I ever did.

And, besides, if the dream reality is reality after all, then the construct is more me than I am.

It is only if it is the other way round that I need to burrow under the construct.

I think I know who the construct is but then the construct image contradicts itself and I get even more confused about where one stops and the other starts.

Oh dear, guess I should sleep before I send myself, or the construct, or both totally mad! If one or the other isn't already!!

Money - Part One

I can't stand the "money is everything" attitude that seems to infect everyone these days.  I'd be quite happy if someone just did away with the whole concept.

Money is not life, not happiness, not anything except an inflated measure of someone's ability to shit on everyone else.

Of course, by rights, according to my middle-class upbringing, I should be striving for financial success, stability, 2.4 children, a Peugot 306 and a dog.  But I can't think of anything worse.  Although stability might be nice.

Questioning

I seem to be bent on self-destruction at the moment. I don't understand what it is that draws me to people who aren't “good” for me.

Maybe it is still the 'little girl rebelling against Mummy and Daddy syndrome', but I think it is more self-oriented than that.

Tavery rebelling against Tavery.

I feel so much of the time that there are different personalities inside me competing for time.

There is that part of me that just wants to give up and say “the system sucks, I don't want anything to do with it” and simply avoid it as much as possible....become a hermit or a waster and fuck everything else.

The part of me that feels like this is very strong at the moment.  The problem is it confuses me as I don't know where it came from, having been brought up as a good, middle-class, bourgeoisie little girl.  

Of course, no one says I have to conform, but I feel a part of me telling me that I am perfectly capable of being 'normal' and successful and therefore that is what I should do.

You know, mustn't squander the potential and all that.

Why aren't there more options, more ways of living your life?

I suppose there are, it just doesn't seem like they are acceptable choices for "ME".

That's what I mean about defining myself.  I keep getting other people telling me what I am like and what I am capable of and I wish they would all just let ME decide.

Is that too much to ask?