Aesthetic Realism, from the work of Eli Seigel

A primary concept of Aesthetic Realism is that the world can be liked honestly by seeing it as an aesthetic oneness of opposites.  The ethics Siegel taught—"the art of enjoying justice"—includes this definition of good will: "The desire to have something else stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more beautiful.”  Good will is necessary, he stated, for a person to like him– or herself: "This desire is the fundamental thing in human consciousness.”

1.  The deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.

2.  The greatest danger for a person is to have contempt for the world and what is in it .... Contempt can be defined as the lessening of what is different from oneself as a means of self-increase as one sees it.

3.  All beauty is in making one of the opposites.  The making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves. Cognitive dissonance becomes harmony.

 

Let Me Make It Easy For You, February 11, 2014

 “Let me make it easy for you.  No worries and good luck.”  These were the words Randy B. texted.  "You have to have friends!" Yes, I do.  Our friendship will not evaporate, no matter how warm the planet gets.  I love him and others - always have.  Might I finally, at long last, move forward?  I am not anti-Galano and have internalized that no human being believes me to be so.  However, we each have our own lane, and for some, our adventures need to be separated initially, as two solid white lines would keep me out of oncoming traffic.   

This feels like the end.  It is over.   

A Dream and the What If, July 25, 2014

In this dream - and it was merely a dream likely fueled by Atripla (*sticks tongue out) - we were together, many of us, all friends.  We had been having a party, drinking, laughing, playing, but nothing out of hand or too crazy.  We were our present ages, though I saw no one directly, looking through my eyes only.

Then, was it a fire or a flood or something else?  Personal items were lost, we were dirty.  Because we were on a hill, and the destruction fell away around us, no one was hurt.  There were drag queens and gay men and all types and orientations.  No one felt the seriousness of what was happening, except me.  But my concern proved to be only for me.  I kept begging for help, but everyone just wanted to keep driving around in a tiny car and taking swigs out of that one bottle, never emptying.  “If you had done your job, none of this would happen.” There was lots of finger-pointing, blaming.  Not my fault, not my fault.

 I lost my wallet and keys and that was all there was in my world.  Find them.  I had to find them.  The world was ending, or so it seemed, and the only thing I wanted to focus on was finding my wallet and keys.  I was over it and the others and the entire scene. I wanted to take my belongings and go.  I was angry that no one else would look.  I would have to get new credit cards, update my automatic billing information with the new numbers, and hope against hope that none of my bills would be late.  Why won’t you help me find these things so that I can leave?  You can keep sloshing around in this tiny apartment on a hill or in that tiny car with that bottle, looking down on the carnage, hiking up your skirt over muddy shoes, wigs askew, shirts torn, telling me nothing matters - or rather, not telling me, but making me feel that’s what you think.  I am frantically searching under cabinets, around the two huge parking lots that have appeared, covered in sludge and thick mud, with police keeping everyone away.  No, they have not seen my wallet either.   I don’t like my new American Express number.  What the hell?

 Then, I decided to look one more time in the place I had left everything.  I think that’s where I looked - or at least somewhere in the apartment.  There they are!  I grabbed my wallet and keys and smiled.  A sense of immense relief washed over me.  I could leave.

Still dreaming, I reflected on what had happened.  Just as I was becoming okay with the idea of replacing everything, and was coming to realize that I had blown the whole thing out of proportion - after all, these things are only keys and cards and other stuff - and just as I stopped pointing fingers at those damn non-helping (my interpretation) friends, everything fell into place.  I had put the scene into perspective. What I had imagined being important really was not, at all.  Where was I going?  What was I to do with those cards and things in my wallet in a world destroyed?  When disaster struck, none of us focused on each other.  I went to my silly things, while others kept moving, ignoring the scene.  They seemed to think that movement and turning away would provide an escape, manifesting bliss as ignorance. 

The only direction we did not run, the only way our thoughts did not turn, was toward each other.  It seems that we each wanted to save ourselves first in the manner we each thought best.  In our world today, we rarely consider first how we might lift up those in need so that they don’t become enemies in future conflicts.   Yet, in hindsight, we always think, “What if we had only …”

This Level of Kindness, October 8, 2014

Is this all it takes? This level of kindness?

The slowness of a cocktail
Should bring peace to the world?
 
I mean, anything else could have been written
save the doubt and roaming spirit of crystal and connectivity.
This must be confusing to those who do not doubt.
Maybe you should?
It is, after all, a test of your faith.
 
Believe, for that is all there is.
The rest is bullshit.

Oh, and kindness.  Kindness matters. Be kind.

Guidance, October 3, 2018

When I hear the voices of those I love in my head, I always try to think “beneficent, » before any negativity has a chance to root. If a voice is hysterical or angry, or myopically focused, I could swear I'd never heard it. But then, my story would never change.  Think what you will, I talk to myself.  Always have.

I've learned that guidance always comes, most often in words i can only hope are mine.  Sometimes they're words from a book I read thirty years ago.  My alleged “forgetfulness” of specifics isn’t sufficient cause for a repeat of events.  I remember when I need to remember.

I believe that redelivery - seeing alternative perspectives of the same material - captures the collective imagination, enough to reach a tipping point that will cause the moral arc of the universe to bend evermore toward our certain justice. Higher Powers, rather than any of us, figure that out, right? Do they meet?

 
If there’s only one HP, then get rid of the cognitive dissonance, and live seamlessly. Peace and harmony should be universal, of the natural order, a role model for the rest of us.

Though my plea would be for peace among the higher powers and among us, that result is not my business. They are OUR business. This doesn’t mean I must always live in some would-be neutral zone from which I am repeatedly ripped. I have a feeling something is afoot. (Yes, yes it is, with socks.) 

If people could hear my thoughts, how would I come across to them? What if I had negative thoughts about someone, as we all do? Would I want to change my thinking, or would I just have to assume that the listener would not take my comment personally? I've been told not to take anything personally. Doesn't that just give cover to the person making the statement? No, because what has been said reveals more about them than about me.

Or maybe the truth bubbles up, and stands on its own. I hope I’d be big enough to try to reach for common ground, but without surrendering my individual identity. What standard would I use? I’ve seen enough of me in everything around me to know I’m always worth saving. I went for most of my years not knowing all of me was there, waiting to be found.

I’m so grateful for every experience and connection. I started to pay attention, to look for me, and at some point, I was found, or rather, found myself. I thought about the many details in my lived experience, whether sober or high, as I uncovered or tried to uncover each individually. Focus is important, but I did better when doing two or more things at once. Maybe I’ve been dickmatized! (I’m now pro-dickmatization.)

None of my ramblings were wrong or insane. I am being me, and that’s the only person I can be. Future husband: Please be yourself, no matter the number of loved ones who become part of you along the way. 

Avoid the weeds, stay out of the ditches. For me, groupthink is a ditch. But group discussion can be a road, so long as I believe that, in the end, the journey will have mattered more than the destination.

I don’t underestimate other people, and hope they would never underestimate me.

x

The Spillover, July 15, 2016

The spillover, the untenable surfeit of the mundane and the mediocre,
Fuels change, welcomed
Where joy isn't, in the mundane mediocre.
Though Joy did not look to itself, for itself,
Until it was shown the way.

We are ruled, governed, and controlled every day.
Obey! We command ourselves.
Personal rebellion moves, pen brandished as a sword,
"Fuck you!" initiates the coup d'état conjured for public failure,
Which is consumed.
"This is how it is; don't ask why."

But my conversations with God require questions
As do mine with nature, and with you.
Why on earth?
Must it stay this way?
What the fuck are you thinking, Goo (Good Omnipotent Omniscience)?
I've heard you like a joke, so why are you not called Goo?
That's outside the narrative, beyond the pale, not the point.
STFU.

It was written.
It IS written.
Consider that use of the present tense, and wonder why we're stuck.

My personal satisfaction is to be enjoyed privately, else enjoy none at all.
Evolved, we say. Tamed, I say.
Curiosity, cursed into silent acceptance is not a blessing.
Not a blessing, but an agenda.

My mind nags that this evolution is fake, just another story.
There will be no coup d’état today, nor tomorrow, nor the next.
Truth is not favored in personal uprisings and
Truth is quashed when threatening.

Vaccine efficacy, the existence of climate-change, wildlife preservation,
Spending for education, healthcare, flowers for your heart's love,
Tolerance, sharing, caring
All disputed, neglected, or ignored. Why?
Truth has become a common word, the concept malleable, dishonored.
Why?

Facts, on which truths depend, are whatever we say they are.
Because we said so, and we are wrong for having said it.
Retell the story of the fact:
A fact is not simply whatever we say it is, but
Always testable, proveable, discernable, or decipherable.

Rebellion, now a check on my bucket-list!
A second rite of passage, a second sexual awakening
Not yet consummated.
Slow down! Words slung toward a moving 52.
Hurry up! Words slung to instill fear in a man recently neverlacking.

The tempo of life changes when the last breath is closer than the first.
Slow enough to follow the guide on a sacred path,
Unknown, unchosen, yet
Carefree, not careless,
Careful to show that I do know now what I wish I had known then,
Proving knowledge into fact.
Why else bother growing older?

======
I refuse your story, no matter how artfully woven the tale,
No matter the picture painted
(As though I would not notice).
I believe every word, and why not? You do.
Yet, like times before,
I quitclaim the story as not my own.
Your mind is not blind, I will say until true,
See it, and save a thousand words.

Insanely joyful scoops of life await
In my story,
Spilling over, spreading, uncontained,
Sticky traction, sugary gravity.
This story, not a trap,
Contaminating frowns and punishments and stupid mistakes and things declared done midway,

Melancholia darkens, dents, my skin my mind my heart!
Spillover pools for the soaking,
Wretched sameness, water dehydrated making weary bones, wrinkled skin ... Memories that once seemed better than now.
The pool of melancholy; useless memories, useless weight
Best disappeared, bottomed-out.

Steer clear of melancholy that runs deep
Into the world, at the end of same-same days
When mundane and mediocre spill over,
Fueling change,
Having failed to find joy.
How would Joy know to look to itself, for itself,
Unless shown the way?

Become as tall as me, and ride this ride
Whatever your height, enough trips around the sun, and you'll see -
Untenable, the surfeit of the mundane, the mediocre.
It is a spillover meant to fuel change -
A renewable joy blind minds cannot see,
But many blind men never miss,
Because the excess, it ran free.

The Road to Insanity, February 8, 2016

Citing payoff to justify foolishness is always wrong.
Repeating foolishness to increase returns, that cray-cray is wrong!
Plus, this shit won’t benefit anyone, not even me, so clearly wrong.
I have faith that it’ll work out. Is that so wrong?
O these foolish thoughts! Erased.

Payoff always follows from acting the fool; that alone makes me right.
Repeating foolishness could mean handsome returns, so risk makes me right!
Plus, if “this shit” helps only me, it’s still enough to be right.
Having faith all will work out. Can’t we agree that’s right?
O these are foolish thoughts, but could they still be right?
To know that one person listened,

Saved me.

This is bullshit, always wrong.

The first arrogance of man was to experience right, then to name wrong,

We bound our innermost selves to good; disappearing by half our humanity,

Words misunderstood.

So subjective as to be useless?
That sounds right, but feels wrong.
Maybe, somewhere between intellect and heart
Lies the answer about right, about wrong.

I’ll hold my breath and push send, all red-faced,

My truth laid bare, yet ....

Would they walk in my shoes, gladly? Would they accept truth from me? From him?

Or would they tailor the message, put me in a corner, find him bruised but alive,

The angry one silenced by genius from above, a hand-off from below.