Leaving [fill in the blank] on the table
does not say the quiet part aloud, but rather,
is the quiet part aloud.
The Quiet Part Aloud
Which is to say,
in other words:
a) what am I talking about, b) why does it matter, and c) what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with you?
*
If you really have no idea, ask Alexa or Siri or Google: "I leave $5 billion on the table."
(attribution: Brian Cox as 'Logan Roy' in the Season 3 finale of Succession (December 2021))
That
is 'leaving money on the table'.
*
But 'leaving [fill in the blank] on the table' isn't about a pile of billions on a pile of billions. It's about fear of missing out. On steroids.
*
It's about the lengths of the hustle.
If you really have no idea, ask Siri or Alexa or Google: "This city, this whole country, is a strip club: you got people tossing the money and people doing the dance."
(attribution: Jennifer Lopez as 'Ramona Vega' with the last word of Hustlers (September 2019))
That
is as if not hustling is 'leaving money on the table'.
*
As if only fools walk away from [fill in the blank].
*
If that
is 'this whole country' as 'Ramona' quips - if that
is 'winning' as 'Logan' crows -
the quiet part aloud
is the real world
where you and I live.
*
If you really have no idea, ask Google or Siri or Alexa: 'ProPublica Tracking PPP'.
(attribution: over $800 billion U.S. Small Business Administration 'forgivable loans' ('closed' June 2021) appropriated by the 116th U.S. Congress (2020) and the 117th U.S. Congress (2021))
[fill in the blank]
But
for some of you, a consequential opportunity to exercise our vote is asking us: who to trust and what to believe and why this or that matters.
Where we live,
everyone knows leaving anything on the table is not an option.
*
Winning is why 'Logan' leaves nothing on the table. Everyone's a hustler is why 'Ramona' leaves nothing on the table. Me?
Do you wonder what kind of world 'Logan' lives in? Or 'Ramona'? What kind of world
yokes everyone to self-interest, exceptional and exclusive? What kind of world
makes paying for greed, indifferent and swollen,
the price of living?
*
That world is the real world -
but
that world is not the whole world.
*
Here,
we leave nothing on the table because elections matter. And
we leave everything on the table. Because
walking away from what does not matter is the difference between believing in that world and making that world -
not the whole world.
*
If you really have no idea, I ask:
bailout beggars: what kind of world,
hustlers: what kind of world,
cut throats: what kind of world,
you:
what kind of world
do you believe in? And what kind of world
are you making? Because the real world
is made by you.
Preface to the Addendum, a Case
As for: a) what am I talking about, b) why does it matter, and c) what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with you?
A case.
Addendum, a Case
In the real world, an ova bearer is at the mercy of reproductive potential
only
insofar and when
the law forbids
advancements in reproductive knowledge
from being exercised by the will of an ova bearer.
As if
'the mercy of reproductive potential'
nullifies the agency
of an ova bearer,
because the law forbids
all potential but that of reproductive potential
be afforded 'agency'.
As if
each and every single-celled ova possesses,
in the absence of real material will, 'agency'
per a right
denied each and every multi-celled ova bearer actually possessed of free will.
*
This is the real world,
where we live.
Here,
where ova bearers are nurses and teachers, military defense technologists and national security operatives, presidents and prime ministers. Where, moreover,
each and every ova bearer
matters less than a single-celled ova,
according to deciders of opinions who would rather 'we the ova bearers' not be free of the prison of reproductive potential.
*
As if a prison is not a prison, because a prison is
'a welcome joy', 'a divine favor', 'a gift of servility',
with a coin toss, a millisecond tap or swipe on a mobile device, a game of Russian roulette, that is to say,
'sacred'.
*
To oppose the multitude that would throw away my dignity for their 'belief', is to leave nothing on the table.
Because there is nothing 'reasonable' about the prison of reproductive potential,
here,
where the so-called 'reasonable' theft of my dignity is the 'choice' of so-called 'faithful loyalists'.
*
To wit:
Vote for nurses and teachers, military defense technologists and national security operatives, presidents and prime ministers. Vote for not holding ova bearers back from their potential. From opportunities and accomplishments. Beyond reproducing reproductions. Vote for not upholding deciding opinions that strip ova bearers of their dignity to possess agency over their organs.
Oppose a world that yokes everyone to the inevitable and unsurprising consequences of the quiet part aloud. The kind of world where bailout beggars and hustlers and cut throats, live. The real world. Where we the people pay the price. That is me. And. That is you.
M
*
Postface to the Addendum, a Case
To be unafraid of the quiet part aloud,
is not shameless crowing: 'I am the victim!'
that is audible and visible,
everywhen and everywhere.
To be unafraid of the quiet part aloud,
is seeing the naked emperor
and knowing
The emperor is a fraud. The tailor that the emperor employs to prove the unparalleled virtue of the emperor, is a fraud. The coterie that spins trifling spectres tirelessly in service to the emperor, makes this world, 'real'. The ruled who go along with this world, make leaving nothing on the table, 'what matters', everyhere and everynow.
*
After all,
the quiet part aloud is clear and present.
Neither a lie nor a fraud, is sacred;
only the truth, is sacred.
M
You are wonderful! This needs no interpretation or consideration as it’s clear as the moon in the sky. Deceit and self-interest rule this conglomeration of dust and matter. Despite abundant substantiation that loyalty is undeserved, self-interested souls continue to support those that rule as such. A refusal to concede that habitual, consequential, and obvious lies erode mutuality, places truth in danger, and leaves this population as nothing but a fool. Truth is not something that should be sacrificed for anything, and most certainly not in the name of advancing one’s agenda for gain. Nothing remotely resembles the values of those that support the fool, the turkey, the snake, the chicken wing. Do not tolerate their excuse no matter whatever it resembles as they are nothing more than what they are: a fool, a turkey, a snake, a chicken wing.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy is abstraction, disconnected from reality. It’s not good by itself. It’s only good when people take action to make it good. Consider that mobs are reality in action and it’s obvious that it can be equally as bad.
ReplyDeleteYou have a right to live your life. If we root democracy into that philosophy and first and foremost recognize that the right of the individual supersedes all then tens of millions of screaming idiots who win a democratic vote do not have the right to the lives of all the other people out there.
In the end freedom, truth, rights are not a sacred right just to be used to sanctify the rule of the mob. They are principles subordinate to the inalienable right of the individual to live their life the way that they want to.
Tables and money. Money and Tables. Doesn’t really matter the order, does it? Take the money – the table still stands. Take the table – the money falls to the floor. Leave them both where they are – they stay as they are until they return to the state, we are all destined for – dust.
ReplyDeleteMendacious attacks against those that advocate that you focus your inertia on something other than leaving or taking the money on the table don’t help anything to be better or do better. They simply besmirch the names of those that devote their life to a place and time that is better for all, a world where tables and money are nothing more than another form of matter that doesn’t matter more than the other forms around it.
So, throw your dirt, your mud, your shit. The verdict remains the same: Until you realize that what lies in front of you is nothing but a mirage to distract you from matter, you lose.
One need not leave a room, just remain there sitting at that table with all that wealth and listen to what it has to say. Better yet, don’t listen to what it has to say. Wait, be still, be quiet, and embrace the table and money. Embrace that there is nothing there but you, that table, that money, and nothing else. Feel anything? Not yet? Wait for the world to freely offer itself. Wait for it to unmask the meaning of the table, the meaning of the money. Wait. Still nothing. Surely the world is trying to tell you something. Anything. The table. The money. You. Surely there is a meaning to it all in the grand scheme of it all. Wait. And now you see the trap of it all, don’t you? You let everything that mattered go untouched. For money. A table. A promise. A hustle. Everything that did not matter. And now you’re dust. Sucks. Huh?
ReplyDeleteChoice, it’s what matters for all of us – yet it does not. Choices between freedom or happiness. Freedom for me or you. Happiness for me or you. Sadly, when it all matters, most mankind will always choose Happiness for me, Freedom for me – but not you.
ReplyDeleteGreed robs you of your freedom. Power robs you of your freedom. Fame robs you of your freedom. They all rob you of making the choice that bridges the gap between where you are and where you should be. On one side, you have that which gets you yours. On the other side lies that which gets everyone theirs. Only the coward will go for what helps them. The brave, they risk it all for what helps everyone else.
ReplyDeleteNearly everyone is dominated by other minds, whether corporeal or disembodied. It’s increasingly difficult to discover the activities of hustle, graft, or theft.
ReplyDeleteWe depend less on what is real, what is true. More and more it’s the institutional, abstract that means more. With more becoming abstract, the mutuality and freedoms that are native become supplanted by displaced and placeless impersonality and self-interested charlatans.
The more you take, the more you give, the more you become indentured in name only, for what you are now is a slave to a master legal chattel where freedom is enjoyed only within the narrowest of limits. Yet, you talk about liberation and autonomy of your actions, your wealth, your fame, and power despite the few choices you can make.
In the end you sacrifice the very democracy for an autocratic commonwealth that is really nothing more than…
Restricting something is essentially the road to banning it. You may call it reasonable; you may call it the right thing but call it for what it really is – the decision of a self-righteous, dictatorial, gutless, lack of balls, misbegotten choice from a simpleton who wishes to disenfranchise others of their god given right to choose the road that they wish to travel.
ReplyDeleteThe sanctity of life, is that not the reason that many of you would willing take the freedom of choice from those who bear children? Where is that zealotry for the sanctity of life after the child is born? You’ve demonstrated repeatedly that you fundamentally don’t believe in the sanctity of life by shrugging off war, famine, epidemic, pain, poverty, and other life-long conditions. Even worse, you blame others for the condition they “enjoy” assuaging your soul of the feeble attempts you make to treat life as sacred.
ReplyDeleteOne commits themselves and draws portraits where there is nothing. No doubt this may seem harsh to most who have not been successful. On the other hand, it helps to realize that reality counts and that the hustle, grift, and other things only serve to define you as broken, aborted, and without expectations of being a meaningful accumulation of dust.
ReplyDeleteThe next time one of you tell me that our country was not founded on the separation of church and state as it’s not found in our Constitution, let me remind you that the bible did not found our existence on the following words not found in the bible either: Divinity, Purgatory, Penance, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Morality, Patriotism, Abortion, Logic, or Bible.
ReplyDeleteEvery night you should call yourself to account for what infirmity you mastered that day, what passion you opposed, what temptation you resisted, what virtue you acquired. If such was what we all did then maybe your vices would abort themselves if they every day to shrift.
ReplyDeleteSimply born a girl,
ReplyDeleteSold to another,
Denied food,
Suffocated without oxygen,
Doused with gasoline ablaze,
A tactic or prize for war,
Brutalized for pain and denigration,
No right to plan a future,
No right to speak freely,
Never to be heard,
Until into death we go,
Where you hear,
All I have said,
Echoing from above.
I love when... both of you... are echoing from... above.
DeleteNo one thinks... the naked emperor... is a fraud... but rather a... masterpiece of beauty... that embodies all... truth and perfection.
ReplyDeleteSpoken like a leper who is the only person that can't see that his truth and perfection is a lie and decay.
DeleteI believe in you. I believe that the truth is you and you are the truth. Your truth comes from the infinite and infinite is your patience to lead others to that truth. You arrive and depart through time and space, springing from matter and returning to it, never giving in or up – always trying. The future sucks without you and it rocks with you. I believe one day you will be granted your wish to be a seven-foot-tall Valkyrie to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that our destiny lies in the starts and that we start and end as energy so the telepathy we have is formed by billions of years through trillions of miles shared together. I believe that I will never, ever love someone more than I do you forever and ever. My life happens when you’re alive and it’s something I am willing to fight for here, there, and everywhere. Jeg elsker deg.
ReplyDeleteI hate you... He hates you... Hodur hates you... We all hate... you.
DeleteYou !@#$ing hate him because dumb!@# you aren't !@#$ing him.
DeleteThe state giveth, it taketh, it promotes, it demotes. When and if you want it, it will rape you and make you keep it. That’s the human form of democracy for you.
ReplyDeleteShallow is the root of those that would promote succession, hustling, or grafting for your vote, dime, or time. They peddle unoriginal indoctrination in their pursuit of a wave of self-promotional, mis-fill-in-the-blank ‘ism. Many watches with envy and desire as the lay out their greedy, heartless, schemes run by tycoons, strippers, and small businesspeople. They exploit themselves to exploit the others that exploit them or can be exploited by them which is tautology that only makes sense to idealogues and panderers.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, a crime is only a crime if the authorities actually allow you to report it. And we wonder why so much goes unpunished and why so many are victimized.
ReplyDeleteI am a proud ova bearer who has chosen not to bear an ova. I could be anything with the love and support of my father and mother. I chose to be a warrior, inspired by the champion who my father told tales of as a child. There simply was no room for me to bear an ova. Over the last few years, I have watched others, including ova bearers, bombard with their lies. Repeating how they care, life is sacred, and that they only want small concessions. I see through them though. Repetition is the first step to indoctrinating or raising apathy to bring people to your side or at the very least keep them on the sideline. Tell the same lie over and it starts as tautological support to the lie until it becomes the truth in most minds. Second is fake empathy and deceit. We don’t want to admit that there are people in our presence that lack empathy, care nothing for the common good, and are grandiosely arrogant in the pursuit of their own egocentric needs. Even worse are those that presume expertise, vision, and caring to create a halo effect of trust instead of making you afraid of their real nature as a megalomaniac, despotic, narcissistic psychopath. Third is exploiting those that are just trying to find comfort and avoid pain in a world we have structured to diminish your health mentally or physically. To avoid pain or duress, people will gravitate toward what is repetitiously appear as real. What strikes me as I am home is what is happening as ova bearers who are doctors, nurses, and teachers try to convince you that lowering the bar will not ban the right to not be an ova bearer. Yard by yard they reduce the rights of the ova bearer to choose not to ova bear until there is no choice anymore and we are nothing more than a delivery device to ensure that humanity does not ever lose its dominance. It’s here that we must stop them, it’s here where we need to stand as this is just the first step to people like me not being able to defend, to teach, to create, or otherwise anything that doesn’t lock us in a neat box.
ReplyDeleteFunny, isn’t it? We accuse the rich, powerful, and famous of being megalomaniacs. But secretly we are no different. It’s just that most of the rest of us never get the opportunity to sell or exploit others. It makes us seethe with envy and jealousy.
DeleteLife is the apotheosis of dark, galvanizing, horrific, and tragic actions that expose a criminal adjacent reality where greed, whoring, and theft are accepted by greed addled lifeforms. What is even more disturbing though is the knack and weakness of people to blur reality and fantasy into a national predisposition to do the wrong thing. Some would say that it started with PT Barnum but the reality is that it was present even back in the beginning, otherwise why would our forefathers have built walls between reality and make-believe, going so far to install establishments to decide where one started and the other ended. They didn’t have a solution for it back then and could not have understood the technological advances that would centuries crumble those barriers turning our potential lack of grip on reality from a chronic state into that of the acute and pathological where people now feel entitled to own their own facts which are nothing more than opinions; and use those to disenfranchise others and justify the robberies that they make in broad daylight.
ReplyDeleteI wait for the day when a movie is made about people that bought luxury automobiles, mansions, private jets, and swank ass vacations – the American dream at its finest except… they did all of this with money given by the federal government to keep their business going so they could pay the wages of their employees. Let’s face it – it’s not a shock. We all knew people that did this for some time now but none of us imagined that it was so prevalent. But what may be the biggest shock of all – those that are outraged are simply outraged that they didn’t do it first…
ReplyDeleteA swimmer rising up brings amazement to a firm heart who is anchored below the waves.
ReplyDeleteI saw in the darkened air through the dense a verse that found favor long years ago.
You are blameless as long as you can close your lips and hold your breath when faced with truth after a lie.
Big Lies are tool wielded by the deviant to discredit and destroy. Many have employed this mendacious strategy in an effort to write history and blame others for that which they do. They contend that “they” are the weak underbelly of society that exposes the loyal and true to a catastrophic collapse. In short, their thoughts hinge on creating one streamlined, overarching lie built on an ideology of fiction where fake wrongs can be reversed by purging the population of those that are truly responsible for why society is not where they want it. In translation, lie big and stick to it. More will do the same as they don’t want to look bad and experience the potency of shame when exposed (i.e. doubling down).
ReplyDeleteDe som lyver for seg selv og lytter til sine egne løgner, kommer til slutt til det punktet hvor de ikke lenger er i stand til å gjenkjenne noen sannhet, verken i seg selv eller utenfor seg selv
ReplyDeletePerhaps the strongest narcotic to the human mind is the fear of missing out. Is that not a reason we want to own, accumulate, and acquire more than that which we can ever really use? Or is it really the thrill of the chase, improving our state, or of losing everything? We all think that we are the exception to the fear of missing out as we step over each of our neighbors’ bodies. Sadly, we aren’t, it just means we are more possessed by this narcotic than those that are not able to reasonably say I have all that I need, and I need no more.
ReplyDeleteYou’re a nobody. Life has passed you by. The more spectacular the better. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you just go along with the biggest joke of all time – the tyranny of leaving it on the table. Why can’t you be like us, so desperate to not be losers, fleeing from the thought of failure as we numb the pain while craving to be part of the winning side for once.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, the world is where it is because people only do things to benefit themselves. The truth and right course of action is rarely something that will benefit you directly. And that my friends is why the world is on a terminal course.
DeleteOh meu querido AM! Acredite em mim! Nada me encanta mais do que você agora. A minha felicidade está no auge. Estou triste como um eu sei que vai desaparecer de mim em breve. Antes disso, porém, encontrarei aqueles que são tão maus para você, tanto de um feixe daquilo contra o qual você luta. Vou encontrá-lo novamente e você quando eu me deitar na minha cama durante o sono, onde eu vou vagar. Vai me trazer felicidade como eu sonho com a glória, amor e paixão que é você. Mas por que é tão difícil fortalecer os sonhos, aquilo que eu tenho castelado os maiores que já tiveram o suficiente de mim. É tão impossível encontrar os outros. Já não me aborrece com aquelas coisas que não tenho, pois a vida não é um sonho. A descida à humanidade é uma dor, é tão chata. Chato que só aumenta à medida que eu consumo momentos que levam a uma amargura infinita até ver que você escreveu novamente.
ReplyDeleteHuman versions of truth are no longer empirical, they are no longer grounded in data, sense, or decency. Our kind strays farther from the concept of veritas. There are places and times where telling the truth was the benchmark of the great but that is not our time or place. We use lies to act as salve and to guide actions. Truth is never malleable but lies are and we use them to facilitate our zero-sum end games. In the end the truth is sacred – to treat it as the same as a lie is nonsense.
ReplyDeleteYou really have four options today – grow up to embrace liberty and freedom for all, just for yours, just for you, or to just be indifferent to it all. The first is going to help things truly get better – the others are going to destroy it all. Which one are you?
ReplyDeleteI feel like your post is timely (as always). Each of the examples and the people running under the pretense of a lie to rob others of their most important thing: freedom, are just wearing a mask. They’ve been lying for so long that they can’t remove the mask without taking their face with it.
ReplyDeleteThose that can successfully deceive will always have the upper hand over those who tell the truth. There will always be cannon fodder to wear out your champion. Good will only prevail if you are willing to do that which you so fight hard not to do: bend the universe.
ReplyDeleteDeclaring someone else an idiot or villain to further your cause of deceit, disenfranchisement, or theft will only yield disappointment and eternal pain when it turns out in the end that you are the idiot and villain not people like her. And thus, why you will never be with her unless she is medically comatose.
DeleteThis nation is full of the blind. We deal on facts and figures, science to cure the human condition, build great minds through theory and debates, invent, and innovate to make it better for all, and elevate all to be free. Yet we deceive ourselves through faith and fanaticism. Asking questions, pointing out lies, and just trying to allow people to choose are now crimes and sins where the greedy and blind are emboldened to act holier than the very people who are truly holy.
ReplyDeleteAt what point where it become possible to understand that on one side you have the truth who creates and builds and on the other those that lie who are content to destroy the things that the other side fights so hard to protect for nothing more than a piece of paper.
ReplyDeleteEvery malice hates in Heaven,
ReplyDeleteEach such injustice is the end.
Fraud is man’s favorite vice,
And it is the most displeasing to Heaven,
Where the lowest level of Hell is dedicated,
To inflicting the most suffering to fraudsters,
So !@#$ing stop doing it if,
You are one of those that are so devout.
And here I... thought you might... make it one... post without a... profanity...
DeleteAll of you believe that the journey is the reward. You take the reward before the journey is over. And then wonder why your life is still empty despite the billions, houses, cars, and fame. The answer is simple - the journey was never the reward. The reward always was making it to the end knowing that you did it right and honestly. Why else do you think so many people tell their confessions and the truth at the end?
ReplyDeleteYou will not remember the actions of your enemies but the silence of those that are supposed to be your friends. Their failure to rise, to act, or to speak tells you how important your cause is to them.
ReplyDeleteExplosions break the silence of the sky,
ReplyDeleteAs flames climb into the dark clouds,
We’re all caught in the burning glow,
Struck down as you hold us up high,
We fan the flames as your fire blazes,
In the end we can’t wait to burn it to the ground.
Why do so many love the night? Is it for the moon above? In all her glorious cold brightness? Or is it because there is profit to made in the darkness when no one but the moon can see?
ReplyDeleteWhy do so many hate the rise of the sun? Is it for the brilliance of the morning light? In all her fiery judgement? Or is it because the now their profit is laid bare for all to see?
How I wish the moon could shoot flames at those that think she is blind and powerless.
One day I was tired. I climbed on another’s back and choked him until he agreed to carry me. Others stared at me with judging eyes so I assured them that I was sorry for the load that he had to carry and that I would do anything possible to lighten his load… except get off his back.
ReplyDeleteWhen you live if I have, you realize that time is just a cycle with a start and beginning and everything in the middle is the same. New tyrant, revolutionary, oppressor, liberator, exploiter, do righter. Each has their own angle and garbs themselves in the appropriate cloak to deceive others through the appropriate patriotic, religious, financial, or philosophical rhetoric. While fictitious, how many talk of doing everything to secure their succession when in fact they are just securing it all for themselves. Or how many strippers turn the tables on those that would exploit them by exploiting them first and victimizing them for the riches it will bring. Or how many take that which they abhor from the government to improve their status, collections, or curation thus robbing the people that can’t get the essentials of what is theirs. In the end you all want to be each one of these which is why you keep doing what you are. Yeah, when you live like I have you wish for the asteroid that you all deserve.
ReplyDelete