"Eat or be eaten." is a favorite saying among cannibals at dinner. This is a wannabe joke and a wannabe metaphor. Those wise and funny cannibals and them in my imagination of Ruth Benedict anthropology.
For a minute there, I got stuck in the drone of the Air Conditioners, little boxes that live in the windows of the brick building next door. The white boxes, humming, protruding from the windows almost make it Ralph Rapson (The Guthrie Theater achitect), Bauhaus like.
The wise wannabe metaphor about the cannibals is not a metaphor at all. Consumption is being weighed here. The wannabe joke isn't haha funny either, it's about waste. Everyone likes toilet humor.
We've all heard it before, "Western Society consumes and wastes (Put statistic here) of the world population." Wow, we eat a lot. Everything we eat is neatly wrapped like a present. We even wrap our produce in little plastic bags so it won't touch anything else. We wouldn't want it to get gross. Wow, we throw out a lot.
In the liquor store parking lot today a Benz pulled up next to me. The driver had straight shoulder length black hair. She wore black too (was she middle eastern?), she was wearing sunglasses. Her olive oiled smooth hand with white tipped fingernails casually let a cigarette drop from her cracked window. She was talking on a cell phone. Aghast.
When I came out, a bum was playing with a shopping cart between our cars. He was bent over, holding onto the cart with one hand. He found what he was looking for on the ground and hunched up. The band of his underwear was sticking out of his hiked up pants. He pulled the half smoked, cherry depleted, lipstick covered cigarette through his bearded lips and took a deep drag, closing his eyes.
Go ahead, stare at your manicured lawn. Watch it grow while you complain about the phosphorus in your lake. Let the water run when you brush your teeth. This is the last I'll digress, but don't take the hit. Be progressive. Consume all that you have. Be prepared to pretend you are a character in a children's book about a person that eats everything on his plate. That character (you) consumes everything, oyster shells, orange peels, even the parsley at fancy sit down diners. A conscious reminder only.
"Don't ever leave a half bottle of wine, especially if it is the first."
Capitalism and the instinct to survive proceed aimlessly through my every day thoughts.
But aren't they connected? I mean, the spirit of capitalism and the hull of American Freedom have allowed me to have these apathetic thought processes geared to my survival. Having food and shelter and Things.
Having things steered me toward a mundane life of wanting more, having better. I have always wanted to let go of the reality of existence. The Meaning of Life was easy in the old days; fire, water, earth and sky. Not necessarily in that order. Then someone had something someone else did not, but wanted, needed. Survival and instinct hand in hand like lakes joined by a canal. Something in me could not cope. I did not crawl into a shell of seclusion, I tried to drink it away. Making money made me drink, I swear, I was just trying to survive.
Sometimes we do things we never thought we would do. Mine is the ogre that rumbles with remorse when I hurt someone. Usually, I just hurt myself. I wallow in the self destruction and gawk at the everyday folks, I abhor them and love them and want to save them.
"Sometinmes too hot the eye of Heaven shines."
Losing oneself isn't a crime. It is natural to escape the confines of The Iron Curtain of Rationality. When advantage is absorbed, the wide awake feeling shocks into place. The endorphins give our soul a body and trying to inhale clouds isn't bad.
Looking at the clutter on my desk, I am aware of how mountains are formed and how rain turns to snow when it is cold. Little ice crystals form and grow with symbiotic love of our my natural growth. The snowflake is just me, different every time and knowing I will land eventually. Epic, instinct in the industrialized, post cold war world. That's me. You. Have you been ready to evolve?
Sparrows have nested in the woodbox hanging from the pine at work. For weeks, the baby beaks poked out of the hole for food when the momma brown sparrow brought them grub. The diamond pink throats bouncing in and out of sight. Today they emerged. Two males, raccoon eye crested with feathers poking out all over. Then they flew.
Moments pass while you try to describe movement in a stagnant world. Thing grow and change. This world does too. The flow goes over a waterfall sometimes. Tread water and stand when the rain gets low. Sit down in the stream when you have to. Walk away when the sediment rests.