About Me
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
running thoughts
In the library. Have come here with the intention to study. Now that I am here dont feel like doing so. I like exams times, lots of time to spare, every one is in the edge of their seats, wish all the days were like that. This is quite a strange period. If you know you are tense if you dont you are tense. Strange. Human Nature I guess. Had abnormal psy today. At least I managed to write some answers. Some were my own creation some were not. Hope I pass though. had enough of library I guess i will go back home.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
of thought and things
'Out of some misplaced sense of self righteousness' I have finally embarked on a journey, shunning off that piece of wood that had saved me once..... from my back. On self-annihilation, on not being logical, no future, no past, just present. We are a world based on macro narrative, on sympathy....is there an end to it. "We" brought in "their" GPA but did not bring "their" culture, now its hanging between autoimmunity and university. This system this state has completely ignored to invest in our interest. What do we learn, is there any ideas given to start a company independently? is there creativity in the three hours of paper we write? We are taught how to be a CEO, MD or something to fit into the existing system. One word to define stress: Future.The state and this system is busy reproducing labours, labours to fit in to their system. I do not want to be a part of this rat race. Competition has almost become an instinct, how about just appreciating the difference? for who they are and what they are. It has managed to shake the very foundation we are standing on. Lots of thoughts coming in right on. Till some moment in time violence equaled a tool of justification for me. Now I am having second thoughts... it might be justified in a local level but not in a global manner. The naxals for instance, all we do is just read the headlines "So And So killed by the Naxals" and say Naxals are bad. Though locally naxals might get the support but nationally...hard. A few days ago we lost one of the great leader of the nation. From the place where I come from there is a fair amount of under current against him, now that he is no more those same people have nothiing but praises for him. Sympathy comes in the way of violence, macro narratives comes in the way of violence, martyrdom comes in the way of violence. I will not fight against this system I will just test myself if I can live outside this system... Not plan just do things, no failure no success. I read it somewhere it seems to fit in It said " lets not pretend art or literature or science can make the world better lets just play with the non sense.......
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Too much of Althusser, Gramci.....
Again Back in the same place like before. Almost everyone around me is excited about their future. This is it. we meet, we never meet. I have never thought about the future I am too scared to think of it. Right now I just want to vandalize things. Though I cant do in a big way it would be fun if I could do that. Destroy this education system, this culture, our ethics, sexuality, nationhood.... where all there is to us is everything, now. imagine what the state would be like. For the present moment I want to vandalize myself. Refuse this state of consciousness, refuse this state of reason, refuse civilization, refuse instructions. A person, confined to the shells of solitary, cartoon on the papers in the dustbin, has suddenly been able to see the simmering light somewhere outside, is desperately finding a place to sit rest, talk. Lots of things going around feb 21, 22, 23...., documentary, housing policies,culture paper, msw, our readings, wish i could play a small part in vandalizing some of them.....
Friday, January 1, 2010
'The Other Side Of Progress'
Who cares about morality, ethics, values. We are trapped in a matrix, a very thin line enveloped around ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘rich’ and ‘poor’, ‘free market’ and ‘democracy’. Like an adolescent reflecting one’s own self in the mirror, my understanding of morality is as unstable as that adolescent. Social security, education, infrastructure, academics is all measured by the state (which imparts morality). Am I ‘right’ or am I ‘wrong’, I don’t seek an answer, this makes the world look better. I actually wanted to write about the youths in post-colonial nation, but ended up compiling the ideas of writers, activist, lectures, seminars that I have been engaging myself with recently. The question is: are we a post-colonial or neo-colonial or still a colonial nation. To quote the Joker “I am a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it!” Some sense this ‘Niszethean slave’[1], trapped in a complex transnational state , where everyone is measured in terms of G.D.P., is somehow wanting to break free – free from all social norms, ethical norms, judicial norms (a typical youth for you). Let me now share with you some my concerns’ in issues that I can’t seem to let go.
Late last night, I was taking a stroll down the street; I saw a wide spectrum of the so called ‘poor’ of our society sleeping in the street outside. For many ways it was a “moment of clarity” for me – here’s a government who does not have enough space, infrastructure and shelter for its own people in the city yet a massive ongoing process of displacement of millions and millions of people through “developmental projects”. Tribal, mostly falling its prey, and as I write now, people are being made to do so at gunpoint. Our home minister, P. Chidambaram was a former board of directors in the Vendetta Group, a multinational mining co-operation owned by Anil Agrawal(currently living in a mansion that once belonged to the Shah of Iran), currently devastating the hills of Orissa. Mr. Chidambaram also a former co-operate lawyer represented many mining co-operation; he has a vision of getting 85% of the population living in the cities. This would mean about five hundred million people being displaced, quickly turning India into a police state. I have nothing against development, but the question is whose development, whose progress are we inclined upon.[2] Recently, in the Parliament the government submitted a report researched by Tendulkar Committee appointed by the planning commission. The report said that the government had managed to bring the poverty of the country down. One word. Absurd. This is where morality comes in; ethics comes in – a pure violation of academic ethics on the part of the government and the committee. 1979 definition of poverty said that, using the nutrition norms for a person to stay above the poverty line an individual should have an intake of 2400 cal per day in urban areas and 2100 cal per day in rural areas. The report said that the poverty had come down from 15% to 9%. Not true. It’s just that the government has reduced the intake of 2400 cal per day to 1800 cal per day. Incomes reduced from Rs.800 to Rs.325. This is how the poverty has come down. Wonder why there is a frenetic media focus only on one or two notions? Wonder whose development is it, stakeholders, maybe.
Since the state liberation reform unemployment has shot up, the price of raw materials has gone up 10 times, ownership of the land by the farmers has gone down by 60% and massive reverse land reform through public policy is witnessed. A shocking act by the Supreme Court when Justice Kapadia refused to review the meaning of “public purpose” under the ‘Land Acquisition Act’, when the government was taking the land from the people in the name of “public purpose” an giving it to the private companies. The only sector that has benefited from the ‘state reform’ is the service sector; others have gone down to the dogs. India as the second highest growth rate yet 2/3 of the population constitute of farmer’s suicide. ‘Trade liberalization’ has exposed farmers to the global price which is of course very volatile, plus it seeks a sharp decrease in the domestic price. Where is our social security, provident fund for labourers, sick leaves, overtime payment, holidays (well if you are thinking of NREGA and the recent Right to food, Don’t- a lollypop for the UPA). Enough of economics. Morality is it, we were talking about.
What can we derive from the last century- Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” a unprecedented expansion of human subjectivity, two world wars that brought in the concept of war as a legitimate means of state policy and diplomacy or the ravages of the new technological marvels from aeroplanes to antibiotics to computers – a new type of violence symbolized by nuclear weapons and concentration camps. Morality now becomes politics and politics enters the domain of the public, while ethics on the other hand constitute an individual domain. Murder is wrong we all know that but it’s justified when the state awards a death penalty or right to abortion. Ethics on the other hand provide a relational measure in the context of the individual. Violence has made inroads in shaping the identity and individuality. At least 45 wars were fought in the past century with more than 200 million killed, accompanied by new technological, institutional and psychological skills that as captured our creativity. The defence budget of many countries have overtook the welfare budget, where 60% of all the scientist in the world are employed in defence research, directly or indirectly[3] (Let’s not even go into gender and queer issues). We after all inherit an evolution built on aggression. The idea of India itself is a very modern concept. Is the demise of colonialism complete? Or is it a neo-colonial state? Was there just a shift of political heads on 15th of August, 1947? I know not.
We are told that in the current capital of world capitalism, New York, 25% of all children and 50% of Afro-American children live in families with incomes below the official poverty line. About 40,000 homeless adults live in subways, streets, under bridges and train tunnels of the city. We are not talking about African nations or the third world; we are talking about the richest country, which according to estimates spent between 5,000 billion dollars and $4 trillion only on nuclear rearmament- a clear picture of the relation between poverty and development. According to the Human Development Report of 1998, the three richest people in the world have wealth that exceeds the combined gross domestic products of the 48 least developed nations. One of them is an Indian, and instead of grimly talking of poverty all the while, many Indians have begun to celebrate such national achievement. Here they speak about our struggle, the indigenous people, tribal or the Dalits as if we had no pasts, no myths, no legend, no transmittable system of knowledge, as if our grandparents told us no stories, as if our parents sang us no lullabies. Our past is stolen from us, paradoxically, to push us into the past- very similar to the ‘white man’s burden’. Simultaneously, the lifestyle that traditionally existed between the rich and the poor begin to disappear. Till quite recently, in some traditional parts of our land, the rich lived in bricks, stones or concrete houses, the poor lived in mud houses. The rich wore expensive clothes or western dress; the poor had two sets of traditional clothes (they wore one set and washed the other, which suggests that they probably could stay clean). The rich ate well, the poor ate poorly, but they did eat. The meaning of poverty itself expands to include many kinds of lifestyle that another era would have qualified as a reasonably good one.[4] As the idea of ‘normal’ life changes so do the ideas of sub-normality and abnormality: these begin to include things that were once a part of normality. Problem arises when myths of permanent youth and immorality take over and we get busy keeping time at bay through cosmetics, tonics and fashionable technologies like cardiac bypasses which are mainly designed to bypass the fruits of overconsumption. Satish Kumar, a Jaina philosopher claims that poverty is not the problem- our idea of prosperity is.[5]
For long and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other consideration as falling from one’s station in life, being deprived of one’s instrument of labour, the loss of one’s status or the mark of one’s profession, lack of profession, exclusion from one’s community or public humiliation defined the poor. It was only after the expansion of mercantile economy, the process of urbanization leading to massive pauperization and, indeed, the monetization of society that the poor were defined as lacking what the rich could have in terms of money and possession.[6]
As I said before- trapped in a matrix we are, a global underworld, a substratum of consciousness that defies at every step the mainstream culture of global economics. A condition is created by the exchange mechanism symbolized by money initiating a binary between sign and reality. On one hand, we are left with the split of the world into two and on the other we witness an absence of suspicion given “a priori”[7] assumption where the logical two, ideas and parameters fail to give us an answer. For instance you can define developed but you cannot define underdeveloped without referring to the word developed. A de-constructive turn indeed, this has inaugurated the hermeneutics of suspect. “See there are morals, your codes....it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They are only as good as the world allows them to be” said the Joker, wired into a globally dominant idea of what constitutes public life. All wired up into a historical mode of reasoning which I find very disturbing in my own little space. A de-constructionist examination of the ideological state apparatus where in the domain of knowledge is itself an object of critique, trapped in a matrix we are, where the Joker represents a Focaultian model of reasoning, a global underworld, a substratum of consciousness that defies at every step the mainstream culture of global economics. Pascal: "Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness." Whether it is a sub national struggle or our “concept” of our Nation itself, we need leader like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, Mao Se Tung, Aung San Suu Kyi people who are something more than just political leaders, leaders not just for development but for the people, leaders beyond good and evil, leaders who stood up not just for human rights but for social justice.
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche : ‘The Birth of tragedy’, 1872.
[2] Arundhati Roy’s essay Chidambaram’s War. Nov 16, 2009. Outlook. Listening To Grasshoppers. She says, “soon-to-be-published work, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminum Cartel, Samarendra Das and Felix Padel say that the financial value of the bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is 2.27 trillion dollars. (More than twice India’s Gross Domestic Product). That was at 2004 prices. At today’s prices it would be about 4 trillion dollars. A trillion has 12 zeroes.”
[3] Ashis Nandy, Time Treks - The Uncertain Future of Old and New Despotism: The twentieth century (pub. Permanent Black, 2007) pp. 2-11.
[4] Ashis Nandy, Time Treks – The Beautiful and Expanding Future of Poverty. (Permanent Black, 2007) pp. 93-113.
[5] Satish Kumar, ‘Poverty and Progress’, Resurgence, September-October 1999, p6; and John Gary, ‘The Myth of Progress’, ibid., pp. 11-13, are only two of the most recent writers who have emphasized this old formulation.
[6] Majid Rahnema, The Development Dictionary: Poverty. (pub. Orient Longman Limited, 1997) pp. 211-236.
[7] immunial Kant: Reason.
Late last night, I was taking a stroll down the street; I saw a wide spectrum of the so called ‘poor’ of our society sleeping in the street outside. For many ways it was a “moment of clarity” for me – here’s a government who does not have enough space, infrastructure and shelter for its own people in the city yet a massive ongoing process of displacement of millions and millions of people through “developmental projects”. Tribal, mostly falling its prey, and as I write now, people are being made to do so at gunpoint. Our home minister, P. Chidambaram was a former board of directors in the Vendetta Group, a multinational mining co-operation owned by Anil Agrawal(currently living in a mansion that once belonged to the Shah of Iran), currently devastating the hills of Orissa. Mr. Chidambaram also a former co-operate lawyer represented many mining co-operation; he has a vision of getting 85% of the population living in the cities. This would mean about five hundred million people being displaced, quickly turning India into a police state. I have nothing against development, but the question is whose development, whose progress are we inclined upon.[2] Recently, in the Parliament the government submitted a report researched by Tendulkar Committee appointed by the planning commission. The report said that the government had managed to bring the poverty of the country down. One word. Absurd. This is where morality comes in; ethics comes in – a pure violation of academic ethics on the part of the government and the committee. 1979 definition of poverty said that, using the nutrition norms for a person to stay above the poverty line an individual should have an intake of 2400 cal per day in urban areas and 2100 cal per day in rural areas. The report said that the poverty had come down from 15% to 9%. Not true. It’s just that the government has reduced the intake of 2400 cal per day to 1800 cal per day. Incomes reduced from Rs.800 to Rs.325. This is how the poverty has come down. Wonder why there is a frenetic media focus only on one or two notions? Wonder whose development is it, stakeholders, maybe.
Since the state liberation reform unemployment has shot up, the price of raw materials has gone up 10 times, ownership of the land by the farmers has gone down by 60% and massive reverse land reform through public policy is witnessed. A shocking act by the Supreme Court when Justice Kapadia refused to review the meaning of “public purpose” under the ‘Land Acquisition Act’, when the government was taking the land from the people in the name of “public purpose” an giving it to the private companies. The only sector that has benefited from the ‘state reform’ is the service sector; others have gone down to the dogs. India as the second highest growth rate yet 2/3 of the population constitute of farmer’s suicide. ‘Trade liberalization’ has exposed farmers to the global price which is of course very volatile, plus it seeks a sharp decrease in the domestic price. Where is our social security, provident fund for labourers, sick leaves, overtime payment, holidays (well if you are thinking of NREGA and the recent Right to food, Don’t- a lollypop for the UPA). Enough of economics. Morality is it, we were talking about.
What can we derive from the last century- Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” a unprecedented expansion of human subjectivity, two world wars that brought in the concept of war as a legitimate means of state policy and diplomacy or the ravages of the new technological marvels from aeroplanes to antibiotics to computers – a new type of violence symbolized by nuclear weapons and concentration camps. Morality now becomes politics and politics enters the domain of the public, while ethics on the other hand constitute an individual domain. Murder is wrong we all know that but it’s justified when the state awards a death penalty or right to abortion. Ethics on the other hand provide a relational measure in the context of the individual. Violence has made inroads in shaping the identity and individuality. At least 45 wars were fought in the past century with more than 200 million killed, accompanied by new technological, institutional and psychological skills that as captured our creativity. The defence budget of many countries have overtook the welfare budget, where 60% of all the scientist in the world are employed in defence research, directly or indirectly[3] (Let’s not even go into gender and queer issues). We after all inherit an evolution built on aggression. The idea of India itself is a very modern concept. Is the demise of colonialism complete? Or is it a neo-colonial state? Was there just a shift of political heads on 15th of August, 1947? I know not.
We are told that in the current capital of world capitalism, New York, 25% of all children and 50% of Afro-American children live in families with incomes below the official poverty line. About 40,000 homeless adults live in subways, streets, under bridges and train tunnels of the city. We are not talking about African nations or the third world; we are talking about the richest country, which according to estimates spent between 5,000 billion dollars and $4 trillion only on nuclear rearmament- a clear picture of the relation between poverty and development. According to the Human Development Report of 1998, the three richest people in the world have wealth that exceeds the combined gross domestic products of the 48 least developed nations. One of them is an Indian, and instead of grimly talking of poverty all the while, many Indians have begun to celebrate such national achievement. Here they speak about our struggle, the indigenous people, tribal or the Dalits as if we had no pasts, no myths, no legend, no transmittable system of knowledge, as if our grandparents told us no stories, as if our parents sang us no lullabies. Our past is stolen from us, paradoxically, to push us into the past- very similar to the ‘white man’s burden’. Simultaneously, the lifestyle that traditionally existed between the rich and the poor begin to disappear. Till quite recently, in some traditional parts of our land, the rich lived in bricks, stones or concrete houses, the poor lived in mud houses. The rich wore expensive clothes or western dress; the poor had two sets of traditional clothes (they wore one set and washed the other, which suggests that they probably could stay clean). The rich ate well, the poor ate poorly, but they did eat. The meaning of poverty itself expands to include many kinds of lifestyle that another era would have qualified as a reasonably good one.[4] As the idea of ‘normal’ life changes so do the ideas of sub-normality and abnormality: these begin to include things that were once a part of normality. Problem arises when myths of permanent youth and immorality take over and we get busy keeping time at bay through cosmetics, tonics and fashionable technologies like cardiac bypasses which are mainly designed to bypass the fruits of overconsumption. Satish Kumar, a Jaina philosopher claims that poverty is not the problem- our idea of prosperity is.[5]
For long and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other consideration as falling from one’s station in life, being deprived of one’s instrument of labour, the loss of one’s status or the mark of one’s profession, lack of profession, exclusion from one’s community or public humiliation defined the poor. It was only after the expansion of mercantile economy, the process of urbanization leading to massive pauperization and, indeed, the monetization of society that the poor were defined as lacking what the rich could have in terms of money and possession.[6]
As I said before- trapped in a matrix we are, a global underworld, a substratum of consciousness that defies at every step the mainstream culture of global economics. A condition is created by the exchange mechanism symbolized by money initiating a binary between sign and reality. On one hand, we are left with the split of the world into two and on the other we witness an absence of suspicion given “a priori”[7] assumption where the logical two, ideas and parameters fail to give us an answer. For instance you can define developed but you cannot define underdeveloped without referring to the word developed. A de-constructive turn indeed, this has inaugurated the hermeneutics of suspect. “See there are morals, your codes....it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They are only as good as the world allows them to be” said the Joker, wired into a globally dominant idea of what constitutes public life. All wired up into a historical mode of reasoning which I find very disturbing in my own little space. A de-constructionist examination of the ideological state apparatus where in the domain of knowledge is itself an object of critique, trapped in a matrix we are, where the Joker represents a Focaultian model of reasoning, a global underworld, a substratum of consciousness that defies at every step the mainstream culture of global economics. Pascal: "Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness." Whether it is a sub national struggle or our “concept” of our Nation itself, we need leader like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, Mao Se Tung, Aung San Suu Kyi people who are something more than just political leaders, leaders not just for development but for the people, leaders beyond good and evil, leaders who stood up not just for human rights but for social justice.
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche : ‘The Birth of tragedy’, 1872.
[2] Arundhati Roy’s essay Chidambaram’s War. Nov 16, 2009. Outlook. Listening To Grasshoppers. She says, “soon-to-be-published work, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminum Cartel, Samarendra Das and Felix Padel say that the financial value of the bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is 2.27 trillion dollars. (More than twice India’s Gross Domestic Product). That was at 2004 prices. At today’s prices it would be about 4 trillion dollars. A trillion has 12 zeroes.”
[3] Ashis Nandy, Time Treks - The Uncertain Future of Old and New Despotism: The twentieth century (pub. Permanent Black, 2007) pp. 2-11.
[4] Ashis Nandy, Time Treks – The Beautiful and Expanding Future of Poverty. (Permanent Black, 2007) pp. 93-113.
[5] Satish Kumar, ‘Poverty and Progress’, Resurgence, September-October 1999, p6; and John Gary, ‘The Myth of Progress’, ibid., pp. 11-13, are only two of the most recent writers who have emphasized this old formulation.
[6] Majid Rahnema, The Development Dictionary: Poverty. (pub. Orient Longman Limited, 1997) pp. 211-236.
[7] immunial Kant: Reason.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Digital Natives
Athens 450 B.C.E. was the cultural centre. Greek philosophy took a new direction. Interest was now focused on the individual and the individual’s place in the society with popular assembly and court of law democracy evolved. In order of democracy to work people had to be educated to take part in the democratic process. Thus for the Athenian it became very crucial for them to master the art of rhetoric and the sophist did just that. And from the time of Plato’s “academy” education started. Different cultures across the world are nothing but a constant struggle to stabilize the existing society. And across history we have seen various dimensions of education evolving. Education acted as a “social parent” where in it trained us to be the honourable recipient of the modern state craft. Staying on the relation between democracy and education, education invested in us the spirit of citizenship because there was this notion that left to ourselves we would be a very in-disciplined lot. Till the eighteenth century church held the monopoly of education and the so called “training of morality”. A major shift was noticed when the universities took over the function of the church in terms of education. But education by and large was a tool used to stabilize culture and to stabilize society. With developmental economy coming into the picture, and institutions like Humboldt and Shanti Nikhatan an emphasis on self knowledge was emphasised. These institutions questioned the whole structure of learning. In our present day context cyber space is doing the same thing in a more radical way. It has stripped down the medium of communication wherein the individual is unhindered by the boundries of nation, state, class and gender.
In the initial classes Digital Natives challenged the basic structure of a classroom. It questioned the student’s role of acting as a recipient of knowledge and at the same time questioned the role of a teacher too. It also argued on the whole notion of ‘meritocracy’ and looked at the impact of peer to peer learning in cyberspace. It also questioned the internet’s elitist mode of functioning especially in the realms of academics. With India progressing towards being a “welfare state” and with the recent ‘right to education bill 2009’, public examination going online and the country’s very strong inclination towards globalization we are no longer in a position to choose whether we want technology or not . In the survey which I would first emphasis on the four A’s that the U.N. projected on its right to education which is Availability Accessibility Acceptability Adaptability (U.N.). Secondly I would like to know the impact that the cyber space is making on our lives and identity. The status message in social networking sites is a prime example. Some post how their day was like, some quote, some express their anger and so on. Everyone engrossed in their own world. Irrespective of what I feel about these status messages it gives us this window of expression that is basically not controlled by “civilized” notion of so called reason that we have to fit into. With Internet fostering a new dynamics of interactivity and unprecedented ability to form new forms of social relations the degree of nation state to an extraordinary degree in recent times. But then again to go by Jhon Perry’s argument against internet as a ‘essential laboratory’ a profound degree of subjectivity can be witnessed within the realms of academics itself, on one hand we have this basic structure of “meritocracy” on which our future depends on and on the other hand with cyber culture in into the classrooms a challenge against the metaphysical assumption of “being educated” can be sensed, providing room for imagination within academics. Mr. Pinto’s experiment of using blogs in education has emphasised the use of internet both locally (in Christ) and in a global manner. This has been a case with various social movements too. Thus cyber space has opened up new possibilities to fashion subjectivity as fluid, decentred and heterogeneous. Julian Stallabrass’s argues that cyberspace not only reduces everything to calculable, quantifiable, exchangeable and sailable bits of information commodities but also becomes a commodification in which both objects and subjects are captured. He demystifies the ideology of a cyberspace as a false promise to bring a more liberal, democratic and free society. In the survey I would also like to highlight a bit of Marxist tradition of social criticism directing towards an inherent inequality of cyberspace in distributing social resources among different class and gender. A point of argument I would stress upon is the communication situation fostered by cyberspace will reduce forms of identity to mere signs floating freely in transmission and exchange on the net.
Ashif Ali.
In the initial classes Digital Natives challenged the basic structure of a classroom. It questioned the student’s role of acting as a recipient of knowledge and at the same time questioned the role of a teacher too. It also argued on the whole notion of ‘meritocracy’ and looked at the impact of peer to peer learning in cyberspace. It also questioned the internet’s elitist mode of functioning especially in the realms of academics. With India progressing towards being a “welfare state” and with the recent ‘right to education bill 2009’, public examination going online and the country’s very strong inclination towards globalization we are no longer in a position to choose whether we want technology or not . In the survey which I would first emphasis on the four A’s that the U.N. projected on its right to education which is Availability Accessibility Acceptability Adaptability (U.N.). Secondly I would like to know the impact that the cyber space is making on our lives and identity. The status message in social networking sites is a prime example. Some post how their day was like, some quote, some express their anger and so on. Everyone engrossed in their own world. Irrespective of what I feel about these status messages it gives us this window of expression that is basically not controlled by “civilized” notion of so called reason that we have to fit into. With Internet fostering a new dynamics of interactivity and unprecedented ability to form new forms of social relations the degree of nation state to an extraordinary degree in recent times. But then again to go by Jhon Perry’s argument against internet as a ‘essential laboratory’ a profound degree of subjectivity can be witnessed within the realms of academics itself, on one hand we have this basic structure of “meritocracy” on which our future depends on and on the other hand with cyber culture in into the classrooms a challenge against the metaphysical assumption of “being educated” can be sensed, providing room for imagination within academics. Mr. Pinto’s experiment of using blogs in education has emphasised the use of internet both locally (in Christ) and in a global manner. This has been a case with various social movements too. Thus cyber space has opened up new possibilities to fashion subjectivity as fluid, decentred and heterogeneous. Julian Stallabrass’s argues that cyberspace not only reduces everything to calculable, quantifiable, exchangeable and sailable bits of information commodities but also becomes a commodification in which both objects and subjects are captured. He demystifies the ideology of a cyberspace as a false promise to bring a more liberal, democratic and free society. In the survey I would also like to highlight a bit of Marxist tradition of social criticism directing towards an inherent inequality of cyberspace in distributing social resources among different class and gender. A point of argument I would stress upon is the communication situation fostered by cyberspace will reduce forms of identity to mere signs floating freely in transmission and exchange on the net.
Ashif Ali.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Extract: - A day from my Daily Journal
I am in the library. It seems to have been my best place in college. What do I do in here I really don’t know, though I come here whenever I am free, I am still trying to figure out as to how I spend my time in the library. It’s a really good place to get some sleep too, not much noise here, so yes, you get your own space sometimes. . Just finished my practical exams went off well, first time I actually knew what I was writing. Been too much influenced by Kurt Cobain lately I guess, life seems pretty much messed up, confined myself in a solitary shell, ‘grunge’ to say the least, read, don’t like nobody right now, don’t study, sleep, food, college, that’s it in life, so ‘fuck you Nirvana’. There is still about ten minutes to go for the bell, currently reading two books simultaneously ‘A hundred years of solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and ‘Che Guevara A Revolutionary Life’ a biography of Che by Jon Lee Anderson. Very thought provoking books, fascinated by Che, an unquiet youth, amidst the dreams and curses of many, uncovers the sacred flame within him, eventually cornered, hunted and murdered by the C.I.A. I like to come to the library at this moment of time, not much people around, I always sit at the fagg end of the library, I like it, no one can see me. Nat is in town today, will meet him later this evening. The bell has just gone got to go back to class.
We are having Add English. I sit near the window I get a clear view of the island and the red benches. Mr. Joushya is taking the class. I can feel the fresh air from the window. One girl from F.E.P. is making a presentation, I tried to read a book I have with me but I am in no mood to read. Though I am sitting in the front bench I have no idea what the girl is talking about, feeling hungry so just waiting for lunch. I am enjoying the wind, the presentation is over, class done. Most of the people are talking, some sleeping, while some are asking for permission to go out. I sit with two sisters, Sister Agnes and Sister Inna Mary, I like them, there are discussing about the practical exam that took place earlier this morning. Sister Agnes is saying that she is worried about the forth coming exams Sister Inna Mary is speaking in a ultra sonic frequency I am not able to hear her. One of my goals in Christ college is to witness the two Sisters bunk at least one class. At least some influence over them is expected. What’s the use of me sitting with them? I am happy, they have finally decided to bunk Prof. Shudhamshu’s class later today. The bell just went off. Have Psychology. The very thought of sitting psycho classes depresses me. I don’t care about the attendance, for all I know they can take my attendance and flush it down the drains. I don’t even want to pass this paper. I am here to listen and learn... copy and conform. This writing my dear readers was created out of no other tradition but that of boredom. Psycho classes are a perfect example of a hundred percent surrender...to the process of tradition.
We are having General English Classes now, everyone in the class is quite (he has threatened to cut attendance) lecturer is in a foul mood today. I am feeling restless, tried sleeping, tried reading, tried listening, nothing works, so now I have resorted to writing. She comes to my mind, different world, different places, never meant to be... Last bench girl was just caught talking, Prof. Is inquiring about her roll number, her attendance is scrapped off but the number which she gave was not her roll number, it was the number of one of the girl whom she had given proxy for, earlier during the attendance. Prof. is telling her to sit straight. No one pays attention in his class, he is asking some question one knows the answer. He has caught one more girl talking, I am hearing the person’s voice and roll number, I can’t make out who it is, I don’t turn back to look. Prof. has stopped teaching; there is still some 25mins to go. Now that the class is over I am feeling even more restless and boring, I look around, almost everyone is talking and almost everyone has a group. The noise is getting louder and louder, I can hear the laughers, the moment you see a person not talking you can make out they are having a bad day. Sister Inna Mary, Shruti, Vaneet are among the few writing essay for Dr. Mathew’s class. I just told Shruti to give her books some rest otherwise her books might end up in NEHAMS. She said that along with her books, I too should go, too. Though I did not say it out loud I guess she is probably right. I turned around, I invited Sister Agnes too, to come along with me, she too needs a mental check up, she turned me down. Sigh. The bell has gone, finally lunch, feeling hungry, will go get some grub now.
Post lunch back in class again. Class has gone haywire, there are deciding where to go for the class trip, half the class wants to go to one place while the other wants to go another place, I personally don’t give a damn, I vote for all the three places. It’s Prof. Shudamshu’s class, I like his classes, both the sisters are missing, very happy, finally managed to achieve something in Christ. Half the class is empty, few are listening, most are talking, he is cool though to put it in his own words he does not give a ‘flying fuck’. In his class, listening to him get me in a trance state, like him. He is making some argument on neo-colonialism, I will listen to him. Bye.
Last period of day, the class is almost surreal, there is pin drop silence and the only voice I hear is that of Dr. Mathew’s. The class is busy jotting down her lectures; I look around almost all the eyes in the class are following her. She is speaking on the caste system, I like her classes, she is very strict, no one talks in her class, she has a very dark sense of humour I find it enthralling. I look outside I can see Abinash going home. I never take down her notes, I never write her essays. Socio classes remind me of (The Joker,) “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
The other day, I was walking my way up to college, hot mid-day, middle aged man, walked up to me, very politely introduced himself as a priest from Jaya Nagar. He did not have any money. The priest said that his legs were too tired to carry him and wanted some money for the bus pass. I said ‘no’ and walked on. Just a hundred yards ahead I felt really bad, forced myself to move on. A few steps more, I wanted to turned around go back and give him money. I didn’t, I walked on. I was surprised to find this conflict of mixed emotions within me. Why didn’t I give him the money? Why was I feeling bad? The beggars I meet every day, I don’t give them money but I don’t feel this way. Was I feeling bad because he was a man of God? Would I have felt the same way if an alcoholic or a junkie had asked? Where had my so called “trust” and “faith” disappeared? I have always been critical about the layers of hypocrisy or diplomacy that is prevalent in our everyday lives. I never wanted to be included in this category. This world has shaped me to think like “them”, I hate it. I look back when I was a young, vulnerable, hated, scared kid, innocent to the core, religious as hell. I look at myself now and find myself wicked, obnoxious, cunning, wild and insanely crazy. Damn this world!! Dr. Mathew’s voice struck my ears, bringing my mind back in class again. She has switched over to subaltern studies. The bell just rang classes over for the day.
Back in library again, I have H.R. classes after 15mins, don’t know what I am doing there. Was reading on absurdism and ‘the theatre of absurd’ yesterday, found it quite interesting, and so came here to look for books on it if there was any.
Just finished my H.R. classes, that class is too materialistic, almost six now, I am in the library. Days are going dull, classes dull, that’s how life is sometimes, I am thinking of going back to my place but I have got no work there either. The evenings in Christ is quite pleasant, I always sit just beside the door during the evenings in the library (easier to receive calls or go outside and can feel the cool breeze). The sun is just about to set in casting its reflection all over. Outside I can see flowers of different colours- yellow, purple, red flowers hanging up in the tree, I wonder what the name of the trees are. These trees remind me of home. Some days if I had a book with me and didn’t feel like reading it at home, I would go out early morning, to this village about two hours drive from my place. There is a small teashop there, I would sit the whole day, have breakfast, lunch in that shop itself and just read. Here in Bangalore I miss those places sometimes. Even though we have everything here in the library, internet, newspaper, Wi-Fi, reference, comfortable seats, I somehow long to go back to that teashop made of bamboo and those broken seats. At 7.20 will go watch ‘Dev-D’ with 52 and Megha. I have ‘A hundred years of solitude’ in front of me. I will read it for a while now.
It’s almost two in the morning. Went straight to Abinash’s room after the movie. We jammed a bit, he’s got his music room there, I sang, he played the guitar. I enjoyed it, he enjoyed it, people in the adjacent rooms are probably happy that I am here now, writing. We enjoyed it, that’s all it matters. Wanted to meet Nat today but could not make it, maybe tomorrow. Mohan had come to my room, nice person, if I could I would have found him one girlfriend but I am no good either. He was drunk today, was thinking it was 11o’ clock, while it was 1’ in the morning, rushed back to his place after hearing this, he has office early tomorrow. He is one of my close friends here in Bangalore. May God give him happiness, may God give him peace and if he does better deeds on earth, may God give him a girlfriend too. Saw ‘Dev-D’ today with Divya and Megha. Cinema, a medium of expression, a coherence of unparallel tranquillity, an abyss into the agile escapist mode of reality, didactic sometimes, maybe even nostalgic but a silhouette chimera all the same. ‘Dev-D’ did just that. A fatuous tableau of the contemporary drug culture, adhesive tale of love, the obsession with grotesque happy endings, white horse waiting at the end of every door, something I never really understand. There is so much of fragmented little broken pieces of our lives scattered all around, trapped in the maelstrom of antiquity, yet unity rendered over celebration. There is so much of talk on life going on these days. Blogs, gazettes, lectures, poems, art all glorifying the beauty of life, emphasizing the importance of positive thinking, articles on how the most beautiful things on earth is free. ‘Copernicus Revolution’ according to Kant. A fatuous obsession again to have a goal in life, know what we do, how we do, succeed, control, life-style obsession, fuck that. It reminds me of some lines of Shakespeare, “What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” In one of my treks during holidays, we were out fishing. The river was rapid, flowing swiftly, deep, unpredictable, forests on both the sides. The angry sound of river flowing, the birds chirping, insects, whispers of the leaves fluttering, enveloped under a thick layer of fog, a typical dopers’ day. We normally fish with the generator and I sat on this elevated rock watching the river flow below me. A few steps I slipped I fell down. I tried to hold on to anything on my way down, there were none, the river below was rapid, as I was falling down into the river I found the true meaning of life...... it sucks. For long and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other consideration such as falling from one’s station in life, being deprived of one’s instrument of labour, the loss of one’s status or the mark of one’s profession, lack of protection, exclusion from one’s community or public humiliation defined the poor. It was only after the expansion of the mercantile economy, the process of urbanization leading to massive pauperization and, indeed, the monetization of society that the poor were defined as lacking what the rich could have in terms of money and possessions. A nation measured in terms of economic growth per capita production of materials.
nothing but a piece of dust that can be kicked around in any direction trapped in conformity.... too scared to care about anyone but myself.
Currently been listening to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, ‘House of the Holy’ and ‘Abbey’s Road’ is my current favourite. If there is one place I could go back in time San Francisco, 1960’s, is where I would be. San Francisco in the middle of 60’s was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories, can touch the sense of knowing that “I” was there alive, in that corner of the world, whatever it meant. It was madness in any direction, at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. It was a fantastic sense that whatever they were doing was right, that they were winning and that I think was the handle. The sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil, not in any mean or military sense, they didn’t need that. Their energy would all prevail, they had all the momentum, and they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. But a few years down the line you could go up a steep hill and look west, and with the right kind of eye, you could almost see the high water mark, that place, where the wave finally broke and waved back. They were all wired into a survival trip now, no more speed that fuelled the 60’s. That was the fatal flaw in the Beat’s trip. They crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meek reality that was lying in wait for all those people who took them seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks, who thought they could buy peace and understanding with three bucks a hit. What the Beats took down with them was the central illusion of a life style they helped create, a generation of cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the old mystic fallacy of acid culture, a desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, was tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s late. I am wide awake. Burning up. Bored. Sad. Happy. Angry. Contemptuous. Sitting in a corner. Feel like tripping. Dazed. Perpetually delirium. Feel like going places. Bad places. Dark places. Great places. Contemplate. Expose it all. Hypocrisy. Diplomacy. Excuses. Self righteousness. Tease. Taunt. See myself. No plans. No shame. No fear. Not a fear in the world. No worry. Nothing hidden. No secrets. Watch. Watch as this insanely tamed iridescent world unfolds. Laugh. Help. Fall. Laugh. Like. Hate. Love. Hold on. Move. Self-portrait. Rendered arcane. Imagine. Sense. A dark club. Loud music. Cornered to ourselves. Anonymous. Shameless. No past. No future. A broken rainbow......
We are having Add English. I sit near the window I get a clear view of the island and the red benches. Mr. Joushya is taking the class. I can feel the fresh air from the window. One girl from F.E.P. is making a presentation, I tried to read a book I have with me but I am in no mood to read. Though I am sitting in the front bench I have no idea what the girl is talking about, feeling hungry so just waiting for lunch. I am enjoying the wind, the presentation is over, class done. Most of the people are talking, some sleeping, while some are asking for permission to go out. I sit with two sisters, Sister Agnes and Sister Inna Mary, I like them, there are discussing about the practical exam that took place earlier this morning. Sister Agnes is saying that she is worried about the forth coming exams Sister Inna Mary is speaking in a ultra sonic frequency I am not able to hear her. One of my goals in Christ college is to witness the two Sisters bunk at least one class. At least some influence over them is expected. What’s the use of me sitting with them? I am happy, they have finally decided to bunk Prof. Shudhamshu’s class later today. The bell just went off. Have Psychology. The very thought of sitting psycho classes depresses me. I don’t care about the attendance, for all I know they can take my attendance and flush it down the drains. I don’t even want to pass this paper. I am here to listen and learn... copy and conform. This writing my dear readers was created out of no other tradition but that of boredom. Psycho classes are a perfect example of a hundred percent surrender...to the process of tradition.
We are having General English Classes now, everyone in the class is quite (he has threatened to cut attendance) lecturer is in a foul mood today. I am feeling restless, tried sleeping, tried reading, tried listening, nothing works, so now I have resorted to writing. She comes to my mind, different world, different places, never meant to be... Last bench girl was just caught talking, Prof. Is inquiring about her roll number, her attendance is scrapped off but the number which she gave was not her roll number, it was the number of one of the girl whom she had given proxy for, earlier during the attendance. Prof. is telling her to sit straight. No one pays attention in his class, he is asking some question one knows the answer. He has caught one more girl talking, I am hearing the person’s voice and roll number, I can’t make out who it is, I don’t turn back to look. Prof. has stopped teaching; there is still some 25mins to go. Now that the class is over I am feeling even more restless and boring, I look around, almost everyone is talking and almost everyone has a group. The noise is getting louder and louder, I can hear the laughers, the moment you see a person not talking you can make out they are having a bad day. Sister Inna Mary, Shruti, Vaneet are among the few writing essay for Dr. Mathew’s class. I just told Shruti to give her books some rest otherwise her books might end up in NEHAMS. She said that along with her books, I too should go, too. Though I did not say it out loud I guess she is probably right. I turned around, I invited Sister Agnes too, to come along with me, she too needs a mental check up, she turned me down. Sigh. The bell has gone, finally lunch, feeling hungry, will go get some grub now.
Post lunch back in class again. Class has gone haywire, there are deciding where to go for the class trip, half the class wants to go to one place while the other wants to go another place, I personally don’t give a damn, I vote for all the three places. It’s Prof. Shudamshu’s class, I like his classes, both the sisters are missing, very happy, finally managed to achieve something in Christ. Half the class is empty, few are listening, most are talking, he is cool though to put it in his own words he does not give a ‘flying fuck’. In his class, listening to him get me in a trance state, like him. He is making some argument on neo-colonialism, I will listen to him. Bye.
Last period of day, the class is almost surreal, there is pin drop silence and the only voice I hear is that of Dr. Mathew’s. The class is busy jotting down her lectures; I look around almost all the eyes in the class are following her. She is speaking on the caste system, I like her classes, she is very strict, no one talks in her class, she has a very dark sense of humour I find it enthralling. I look outside I can see Abinash going home. I never take down her notes, I never write her essays. Socio classes remind me of (The Joker,) “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
The other day, I was walking my way up to college, hot mid-day, middle aged man, walked up to me, very politely introduced himself as a priest from Jaya Nagar. He did not have any money. The priest said that his legs were too tired to carry him and wanted some money for the bus pass. I said ‘no’ and walked on. Just a hundred yards ahead I felt really bad, forced myself to move on. A few steps more, I wanted to turned around go back and give him money. I didn’t, I walked on. I was surprised to find this conflict of mixed emotions within me. Why didn’t I give him the money? Why was I feeling bad? The beggars I meet every day, I don’t give them money but I don’t feel this way. Was I feeling bad because he was a man of God? Would I have felt the same way if an alcoholic or a junkie had asked? Where had my so called “trust” and “faith” disappeared? I have always been critical about the layers of hypocrisy or diplomacy that is prevalent in our everyday lives. I never wanted to be included in this category. This world has shaped me to think like “them”, I hate it. I look back when I was a young, vulnerable, hated, scared kid, innocent to the core, religious as hell. I look at myself now and find myself wicked, obnoxious, cunning, wild and insanely crazy. Damn this world!! Dr. Mathew’s voice struck my ears, bringing my mind back in class again. She has switched over to subaltern studies. The bell just rang classes over for the day.
Back in library again, I have H.R. classes after 15mins, don’t know what I am doing there. Was reading on absurdism and ‘the theatre of absurd’ yesterday, found it quite interesting, and so came here to look for books on it if there was any.
Just finished my H.R. classes, that class is too materialistic, almost six now, I am in the library. Days are going dull, classes dull, that’s how life is sometimes, I am thinking of going back to my place but I have got no work there either. The evenings in Christ is quite pleasant, I always sit just beside the door during the evenings in the library (easier to receive calls or go outside and can feel the cool breeze). The sun is just about to set in casting its reflection all over. Outside I can see flowers of different colours- yellow, purple, red flowers hanging up in the tree, I wonder what the name of the trees are. These trees remind me of home. Some days if I had a book with me and didn’t feel like reading it at home, I would go out early morning, to this village about two hours drive from my place. There is a small teashop there, I would sit the whole day, have breakfast, lunch in that shop itself and just read. Here in Bangalore I miss those places sometimes. Even though we have everything here in the library, internet, newspaper, Wi-Fi, reference, comfortable seats, I somehow long to go back to that teashop made of bamboo and those broken seats. At 7.20 will go watch ‘Dev-D’ with 52 and Megha. I have ‘A hundred years of solitude’ in front of me. I will read it for a while now.
It’s almost two in the morning. Went straight to Abinash’s room after the movie. We jammed a bit, he’s got his music room there, I sang, he played the guitar. I enjoyed it, he enjoyed it, people in the adjacent rooms are probably happy that I am here now, writing. We enjoyed it, that’s all it matters. Wanted to meet Nat today but could not make it, maybe tomorrow. Mohan had come to my room, nice person, if I could I would have found him one girlfriend but I am no good either. He was drunk today, was thinking it was 11o’ clock, while it was 1’ in the morning, rushed back to his place after hearing this, he has office early tomorrow. He is one of my close friends here in Bangalore. May God give him happiness, may God give him peace and if he does better deeds on earth, may God give him a girlfriend too. Saw ‘Dev-D’ today with Divya and Megha. Cinema, a medium of expression, a coherence of unparallel tranquillity, an abyss into the agile escapist mode of reality, didactic sometimes, maybe even nostalgic but a silhouette chimera all the same. ‘Dev-D’ did just that. A fatuous tableau of the contemporary drug culture, adhesive tale of love, the obsession with grotesque happy endings, white horse waiting at the end of every door, something I never really understand. There is so much of fragmented little broken pieces of our lives scattered all around, trapped in the maelstrom of antiquity, yet unity rendered over celebration. There is so much of talk on life going on these days. Blogs, gazettes, lectures, poems, art all glorifying the beauty of life, emphasizing the importance of positive thinking, articles on how the most beautiful things on earth is free. ‘Copernicus Revolution’ according to Kant. A fatuous obsession again to have a goal in life, know what we do, how we do, succeed, control, life-style obsession, fuck that. It reminds me of some lines of Shakespeare, “What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” In one of my treks during holidays, we were out fishing. The river was rapid, flowing swiftly, deep, unpredictable, forests on both the sides. The angry sound of river flowing, the birds chirping, insects, whispers of the leaves fluttering, enveloped under a thick layer of fog, a typical dopers’ day. We normally fish with the generator and I sat on this elevated rock watching the river flow below me. A few steps I slipped I fell down. I tried to hold on to anything on my way down, there were none, the river below was rapid, as I was falling down into the river I found the true meaning of life...... it sucks. For long and in many cultures of the world, poor was not always the opposite of rich. Other consideration such as falling from one’s station in life, being deprived of one’s instrument of labour, the loss of one’s status or the mark of one’s profession, lack of protection, exclusion from one’s community or public humiliation defined the poor. It was only after the expansion of the mercantile economy, the process of urbanization leading to massive pauperization and, indeed, the monetization of society that the poor were defined as lacking what the rich could have in terms of money and possessions. A nation measured in terms of economic growth per capita production of materials.
nothing but a piece of dust that can be kicked around in any direction trapped in conformity.... too scared to care about anyone but myself.
Currently been listening to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles, ‘House of the Holy’ and ‘Abbey’s Road’ is my current favourite. If there is one place I could go back in time San Francisco, 1960’s, is where I would be. San Francisco in the middle of 60’s was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories, can touch the sense of knowing that “I” was there alive, in that corner of the world, whatever it meant. It was madness in any direction, at any hour you could strike sparks anywhere. It was a fantastic sense that whatever they were doing was right, that they were winning and that I think was the handle. The sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil, not in any mean or military sense, they didn’t need that. Their energy would all prevail, they had all the momentum, and they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. But a few years down the line you could go up a steep hill and look west, and with the right kind of eye, you could almost see the high water mark, that place, where the wave finally broke and waved back. They were all wired into a survival trip now, no more speed that fuelled the 60’s. That was the fatal flaw in the Beat’s trip. They crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meek reality that was lying in wait for all those people who took them seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks, who thought they could buy peace and understanding with three bucks a hit. What the Beats took down with them was the central illusion of a life style they helped create, a generation of cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the old mystic fallacy of acid culture, a desperate assumption that somebody, or at least some force, was tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s late. I am wide awake. Burning up. Bored. Sad. Happy. Angry. Contemptuous. Sitting in a corner. Feel like tripping. Dazed. Perpetually delirium. Feel like going places. Bad places. Dark places. Great places. Contemplate. Expose it all. Hypocrisy. Diplomacy. Excuses. Self righteousness. Tease. Taunt. See myself. No plans. No shame. No fear. Not a fear in the world. No worry. Nothing hidden. No secrets. Watch. Watch as this insanely tamed iridescent world unfolds. Laugh. Help. Fall. Laugh. Like. Hate. Love. Hold on. Move. Self-portrait. Rendered arcane. Imagine. Sense. A dark club. Loud music. Cornered to ourselves. Anonymous. Shameless. No past. No future. A broken rainbow......
Cold Room
This corner of a cold room is slowly shrinking,
dissipating as the winter's air isbreathed warm by metal sidelines (heaters,if one couldn't tell).
The temperature drops from98.6 to 95.1 not much unless in medical terms or mathematics;postulate 1:
an inverserelationship exists between room degrees Fahrenheit, irrationality and body Kelvin, absolute.
Kerry walked across the woodsy scene; it was a forest, as any poetic landscape might be.
She said, "Why are branches over myhead and earth under my feet? Why does solidityexist in fiction, not in reality?"
Kerry picked a cranberry beneath her fingertips, placed there by grips paid 2 greek coins an hour -- coins carried by woodlands fairies under the employ of Sylvia Plath, sylva meaning woods. This corner of a cold room is slowly shrinking, not expanding with the warmair as a balloon should, but afterall this is no mylar billboard declaring, "I love you".
Besides, those biodangerous tokens will seep into dumpsites like greek coins, corroding the knotted roots of maple, oak, elm, birch,mulberry -- killing them sure as lye.
A thousand years later, one digs them up: the green metal shards and remnants of trees, fallen.
dissipating as the winter's air isbreathed warm by metal sidelines (heaters,if one couldn't tell).
The temperature drops from98.6 to 95.1 not much unless in medical terms or mathematics;postulate 1:
an inverserelationship exists between room degrees Fahrenheit, irrationality and body Kelvin, absolute.
Kerry walked across the woodsy scene; it was a forest, as any poetic landscape might be.
She said, "Why are branches over myhead and earth under my feet? Why does solidityexist in fiction, not in reality?"
Kerry picked a cranberry beneath her fingertips, placed there by grips paid 2 greek coins an hour -- coins carried by woodlands fairies under the employ of Sylvia Plath, sylva meaning woods. This corner of a cold room is slowly shrinking, not expanding with the warmair as a balloon should, but afterall this is no mylar billboard declaring, "I love you".
Besides, those biodangerous tokens will seep into dumpsites like greek coins, corroding the knotted roots of maple, oak, elm, birch,mulberry -- killing them sure as lye.
A thousand years later, one digs them up: the green metal shards and remnants of trees, fallen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
+Physical+Graffiti.jpg)