No Big Deal Fantasy

I'm not in "the unity business."

I'm in the honesty business and the reality business; I'm in the business of observing honesty and observing reality not as an outside observer but as an example of both.

That is to say:

I'm not in "the division business."

Because unity and division aren't the point. Especially when both are peddled by the business of pretending to be the example of both honesty and reality.

No Big Deal Fantasy

The manifest hot potato of pretending to be an example of both honesty and reality is it corrodes discernment of real honesty and reality.

That is to say, pretending ignores its corrosiveness

because it can.

Because not being an example of both honesty and reality but acting as if oneself is, 

is no big deal.

Not only because the premise of "hustle culture" is acting as if the corruption of one's integrity is no big deal,

but also because it's the backbone of society.

In other words, pretending is the "civil" in "civil society"

because the "norm" in "norm culture" is nothing less than the premise of "hustle culture."

*

But! But! But! To abandon mannerliness is to sanction and condone coarse outspokeness. To be brutish to the point of tactlessness. To be courtesyless and blunt.

In other words:

nasty boarishness is a big deal.

*

This is having it both ways but acting as if there are no consequences to this whatsoever.

Moreover, this is having it both ways without altogether appreciating neither the former nor the latter are what they appear to be.

Notwithstanding, both, taffy pulled to extremes as if the heart and soul of a matter is the furthest point from center, are not what they appear to be either.

*

An example:

In a former life, I told people the truth and people charged. Rude. Unkind. Mean. That's what it was branded. As if the truth must be nice.

In a former life, I showed people the truth and people charged. Cold. Unfriendly. Arrogant. That's what it was branded. As if the truth must be pleasing.

In a former life, having it both ways meant being insincere was a choice that rewarded while being unvarnished was a choice that stipulated: be unemployed with integrity or employed without. Or less egregiously, be alone with self-respect or welcome without.

Needless to say, acting as if being fake is no big deal

is a big deal.

*

Meanwhile:

In a former life, people have been told caring is a trick that covers up intolerance. While those who shun it are brave and free and unafraid.

In a former life, people have been shown politicness is a sham that masks partisanship. While those who scorn it are authentic and legitimate and rightful.

In a former life, having it both ways meant appearing to be sincere was as easy as being a pot to a kettle.

Needless to say, appearing to be the nastiest and boarishest to appear to be the truest and bluest without a particle of bonaest or fideest being

is a big deal.

*

Real honesty and reality neither unites nor divides.

Fraud honesty and reality, however, does both by lying.

Hence the manifest unpopularity of actually hearing and seeing and discerning: what's fiction and what's not. After all, fiction engages. Never mind its contradictions. Never mind its irrationalities. It promises. It delivers. 

Because it lies.

Including oft amplified unities and divisions that are as honest and real as

fakes.

Postface and Epilogue

What do unities and divisions matter, if they're pillars of salt and sand?

As for what's the point of real honesty and reality? Real honesty and reality is the common ground that I've said and shown people who've been told and shown doesn't exist.

As if being so told and shown by fantasists isn't a no big deal fantasy propped without fail, by pillars of salt and sand.

Note Clare

"Real honesty and reality" are not equivalences of "facts", "sciences", "canons", or "religions."

If every fact also has its "errors," if every science also has its "refuters," if every canon also has its "disputes," and if every religion also has its "reformers," then what's real is not every thing that brands itself a "fact" or "science" or "canon" or "religion." No more than such brand is, in and of itself, sufficient to charge such "fact" and "science" and "canon" and "religion:" "real honesty and reality."

Alas "real honesty and reality" is no words. "Complicated" is too loose. "Neither black nor white" is too constraining.

Rather "real honesty and reality" are what "facts", "sciences", "canons", and "religions" should strive for. When, however, "facts", "sciences", "canons", and "religions" pretend to be the example of absolute honesty and reality, this not only corrupts the striving of "facts", "sciences", "canons", and "religions," this corrodes discernment of "real honesty and reality."

As if it's no big deal.

As if lying promises and delivers absolute honesty and reality

instead of lies.

That is to say, as if pillars of salt and sand are as trustworthy as

frauds.

M

*

More

There is something pernicious to our obsessions. The soaking drowning of topics and issues and events as if soaking drowning isn't torture adjacent. A harm that wounds and torments because it can. Because not being harmless but acting as if harm is harmless, is no big deal.

Hand in glove with something neither innocent nor banal. An intent purposefulness that malices. Because "norm culture" and "hustle culture" are its shroud and scythe. Because not being vicious but acting as if malice is viciousless, is no big deal.

On a rope of tug of war, we strain and wrest and heave as if the consequences don't matter. As if the center is the enemy because it stands between a side and winning.

I ask:

What's the point of unity and division, if unity and division engage and ignite our fervor and resolve to strain and wrest and heave without end?

As if shade and smoke and specters, as if ghosts and their shadow, as if games that are realer than real: are no big deal because nothing good ever comes of actually hearing and seeing and discerning what's fiction and what's not.

M

Loopholes Here for Us

If everyone bullies except us -

if everyone caves to peer pressure except us -

if everyone is wrong except us -

then -

*

If everyone silences except us -

if everyone surrenders to populous mobs except us -

if everyone is biased except us -

then -

*

doubt everyone? doubt everything? until -

what's fiction and what's lie is everyone and everything except what's real and what's true is us and ours?

Loopholes Here for Us

If I want to make you believe me -

do I have to tell you the truth?

After all, no one hears what they don't want to hear, so why make you not hear me by telling you what you won't believe? As if belief believing has anything to do with truth truthing. 

If I promise to be honest -

do I have to be, well, honest?

After all, "I do what I want and I say what I want and I'm terrifically-not-to-blame when shit-goes-terribly-sideways," is not a twenty-four karat hallmark-of-trustworthiness, is it? As if "I-promise" has anything to do with "because-integrity."

*

I do what I want.

What do you care who or what I'm bullying or silencing? What do you care if I'm caving to peer pressure or surrendering to populous mobs? What do you care if I'm wrong or biased?

Are you the boss of me? The lord of all? The saint of saints? To judge me? By what you believe I am that I do?

*

Don't you do the same?

As if your consumed flags planted and posted, neither bully nor silence "because identity is liberty" you say. Likewise your ideas echoic of paid opinions affirmed and amplified, neither cave nor surrender to mobs of your peers and their influence "because loyalty is freedom" you say.

*

You also say -

you care about everyone but you. 

I say -

who and what do you really care about? and why?

Hint:

it's not me

and it's not good.

*

You care about you. When you say you care about everyone but you - that's what you say to be heard and that's what you say to be believed.

So long as neither your words nor you - "have to be honest or true" - to be heard or to be believed -

then believing-one-thing-and-espousing-another hand-in-glove-with saying-one-thing-and-exercising-another is you.

Until doubt is the only certainty, right?

*

That's the loophole of loopholes.

When nothing means nothing -

then -

what's real and what's true?

Doubt and belief. You.

As if the big stick is fair because the big stick says so; and the fair weather vane is right because the fair weather vane says so; and the partisan is just because the partisan says so.

What then -

am I?

The "everyone." Who merit distrust and defamation. Because you.

*

But -

if everyone stands with you - then aren't you one of everyone?

That's the loophole of loopholes, too.

To be one of everyone and exceptional, at once; to be liar and honest, in the same breath; to be only human and consequential, en masse.

Because the loophole of loopholes is here not to waste -

here for us.

*

Moreover -

if everything exists for you - then nothing exists that impede what-you-will. Except demons of your own invention. If what's real and what's true is what you believe - then there exists neither reason nor evidence to disbelieve what you yourself make believe. Whether you're right or wrong.

Not only is that too, the loophole of loopholes -

that is your stand.

*

To stand for good -

is to stand alone as the eye of a hurricane, as stillness with endless and circular and reiterative grievance and outrage and misrule.

Which is to say -

loopholes, endless and circular and reiterative, for which you stand and eye, for which I stand are as night and day as - 

you and I.

Note I

The loophole is the way we get away with it.

Like so:

We're not bullying. We're exercising our right to believe what we want to believe is real and true. Moreover, our right to believe what we want to believe is enforced through our silencing of dissent. Even when what we want to believe is racist and sexist and nationalist and of course, religionist.

Since our right to believe what we want to believe is our practice of religion, our practice of religion is righteous. Even when our canon and dogma avow and sanctify racism and sexism and nationalism and religionism. Therefore, our wrongs and our biases are neither wrong nor biased.

Or like so:

Our lived experiences, shared and dramatized, are real and true. Moreover, our voice cannot be diminished; derived from our identity and legitimately possessed, our power cannot be denied. As for those who would dispossess us from our identity and disempower us from our voice, their time is not now and their time is up.

We're not mobs who demand capitulation. What's real and what's true is what we believe. Fullstop. Even when what we believe monolithizes everyone by color and wealth and ideology and industry. Because identity so empowered is fair and right and just - so long as such identity so empowered is not theirs.

The loophole is the way we get away with it.

Like so:

Who's wrong is not us. We stand alone, therefore we're not sheep flocking to the bidding of globalists. Neither are we. We stand alone, therefore we're not afraid of armed corruption and we're not backing down. Nor are we. We stand alone, therefore we're leaning into fictional stories that need to be cast. Nor are we. We stand alone, therefore we're rising up against the monied and the established.

Because what's ours is what's ours. Not only are we not wrong and not only are we not biased - our solutions are not wrong and our solutions are not biased. Because our facts are our facts.

Or like so:

You're against us - therefore you are them. Believers in fictions and lies. Believers in what's not real and what's not true. You're everyone - except us.

The loophole is -

(i) what we believe manifests and defines "what's real for us" and "what's true for us" - (ii) therefore ignoring and opposing everyone except ourselves and our own - is "really" and "truly" - the practice of what we ourselves believe - (iii) never mind believing-one-thing-and-espousing-another hand-in-glove-with saying-one-thing-and-exercising-another - (iv) such that the "practicing of beliefs" is the getting away with loopholes - (v) whether said beliefs are ours or theirs or meaningless altogether.

*

Note II

Though reason and evidence abound - 

that neither race, color, sex, wealth, nation, ideology, religion, nor industry are "who we are" and that neither race, color, sex, wealth, nation, ideology, religion, nor industry are "who they are" -

we say:

this is not only categorically "where we come from" - this is categorically "where they come from."

This is the fixed persistence of the "indelible virtue of monolithizing."

This is the loophole that affirms -

"in the right hands" and "for just purposes" 

monolithizing is neither wrong nor harmful.

That every hand affirms itself "right" and that every purpose affirms itself "just" - is

the loophole too.

Because every hand and every purpose is everyone and everything - and

the exception

for whom the loophole is here not to waste.

*

Note III

Loopholes are words by which actions are permitted - not by explicit approval - but rather by absence of explicit prohibition.

Never mind consequences.

As if "I do what I want and I say what I want" is consequenceless. To wit, so many labor so vigilantly to effect the "freedom" to exercise loopholes because there is no price too great for such "right" to wrong.

*

Note IV

Loopholes conjure "tax loopholes" and "contract loopholes" and "getting away with something that should not be gotten away with if only such loopholes were closed" and so on and so forth;

but loopholes are far more than "ad hoc" or "bad apple" evasions and avoidance of meritorious consequence.

They are -

availing oneself of advantages and exploits - while aware that such advantages and exploits are neither explicitly nor affirmatively "right" - while saying to one's audience of one to everyone :

only a fool would not scorn the rein of integrity and only a fool would not use what exists to be abused.

This "culture" of parasitic disdain of explicitly and affirmatively fair and just conduct isn't limited to taxes and contracts; this "culture" is everywhere as

the "freedom" to exercise loopholes is the "right" to wreck the ship and take everything and everyone with it - and

only a fool would not.

*

Note V

Loopholes as "praiseworthy," as "identities," as "free will because free," ad infinitum exist because we manifest and define "what's real" and "what's true;" it's unlikely that loopholes or loopholers will ever not exist. Therefore the choice before us is not if or how or why or even to "close" loopholes; the choice before us is to loophole or not.

Thereupon, the choice before us is to disbelieve loopholers' praiseworthiness; to ignore loopholers' identities; to oppose loopholers' acts; or not.

Needless to say, while I'm not holding my breath, I know:

the possible is possible.

M

All the Janus

Preface

This is a story.

About receipts.

And the absence of them.

And justice.

And the absence of it.

This is a story about "I know people are good" and "everywhere in the world, all our good is being drowned out" and the real world where wrongs of every magnitude never see justice and what's absent isn't all the words - it's all the real good.

All the Janus

The Store

There is a woman with children so many so small like saplings with no aspirations to be other than reproductions of reproductions. At the store their cart rattles with spareness and water and bread. With them a man for whom wear and ravel are humility badges dispatched to the maws of saplings through the magic of electronic debit for provender. 

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about these followers of the rod of God who know that an eternity in Hell awaits all who do not do as they do: fear God and knowledge else the road to Damnation be their own?

This practice of "faith," enshrined by the authors of seventeenth century institutions as a "liberty" and a "right," repels the self-determination of ova bearers and condemns ideas and would present day institutions do the same.

*

The Enemy

There is an empire nakedly ambitious for more than a bottom line, last place never, cake and eating it too. Say what does a calculus as black and white as grayscale luminance and as hot and cold as amplitude modulation serve anyway?

Itself of course, the best course spoken for. As for the audience in the pockets of beholden finer than dust, crumbs and found parking lot pennies and a hand that fills the darkness, are the courses to be had. 

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about choking on monotony as brittle as lip service to "telling it to you straight" and getting away with it because the audience gets what the audience wants: mouthfuls of ash?

This "nothing's real it's all an act" muleta of lookherenotthere! serves neither you nor me who are but means for the purpose driven axiom of the empire and its ends: squeeze every word and every idea and every life of utility for itself.

*

The Small

There is a stack of boxes on hand trucks. There. Nonononono. There. Because free shipping like a boss | drop shipping like a boss | making bank like a boss | making rainrainrain like a m!@#$r f%^&*ing boss. Here. Yesyesyesyesyes. Here.

The sharp sweet must of hardwood pulp | expectant promise oh! borderlessness of electronic credit | hashtag you know you want it yesterday. So what if the smell of success and the smell of failure are evasion adjacent? If not this then that | if not that then another | if not the door then the window | if not the window then the corner never rests.

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about these evangelists of "faking it is making it" who spurn the yoke of workworkwork for praise be the dream manifested by absence?

This "sweatless hustle" bubbles fraud and deceit, unbroken and unspoiled by rules and regulations derided and despised, for paydays through the pockets of the fleeced, the suckered, the gullible: hashtag fair game m!@#$r f%^&*r.

*

The First

There is a hunt as the day as granite polished to every rainbow revelation of what lava forms fast in a sunlit kitchen. But, croons the professional whose opinion is spray-on-effect-paint is better imho not that you're soliciting my unsolicited opinion mind you which is professional though, look, this is a sign. Of what, you and I and the hunter muse.

A professional opinion though, right? is impartial? essential? real? Because the business of cash commissions and cash bonuses and cash awards for sales and services that meet targets and exceed goals in fiscal periods and commercial markets is not the business of money money money?

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about minted advertainment coin that all but vilify transactions between persons or principals that dare tread without representatives or agents never you mind self-dealing self-preservation as pure as twenty-four karats of reason?

This "no one who does what I do is in it for the clink of the till" as convincing as "no profession is more trustworthy than [fill in the blank]" integrity for a price as if this ensures it for sure because of course it does.

*

The Janus

Like "good luck" said at the Store when it means "go to Hell" by the Enemy when it means "as if exploiting 'granting sincerity' isn't what we do" by the Small when it means "don't blame the gamer, blame the game" at the First when it means "Karma's a bitch" this is a story about the real world.

Because sometimes there are receipts. Sometimes there aren't. Sometimes it makes no difference one way or the other. Because a word that means its antonym, an idea that is the opposite of itself, a person who wears not one face but two are not wrongs that justice sees.

Sure there are occurrences of selfless generosity with and without receipts shining a light but briefly but limitedly but the once. But also there are mountains whittled to pebbles rolled in ones in hundreds in millions until grains of sand outnumber the once.

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about these acts of "human nature" as vital as natural disasters to which indifferent habituation is but free willed inaction?

This "humanity is what it is" monuments so-called "good being drowned out" by so-called "exceptional wrong," while all the real good hear all the words that monument all the exceptional nothing in the world. 

Epilogue

The Ugly

There is an idea: a wannabe audacious reversal of ideas themselves spit spat spurt the opposite of themselves and the words rumbling tumbling bumbling for power and wealth and fame aren't priceless, you know. 

Oh! the burden, the crisis, the terrible weary wearing not one face but two, not two faces but hundreds, not hundreds but all the words not one of throwaway consequence, I know.

Tell me.

What's "good," exactly, about "all the real good" that's wrong of every magnitude? Of no justice for the practice of "religion" that effects the powerlessness of ova bearers for the powerless and their "sanctity," as if without having consented to be subject to the practice of such "religion" all are subject to its "authority," its "law," its "right" anyway? 

This "good" wears not one face but two, not two faces but hundreds, not hundreds but all the words not one of throwaway consequence, I know. For all the words that wannabe "all the real good" while exercising the "liberty" and "right" to fool and foul are as just as carved stone and as pitiless.

M

*

Postface

Of course "I know people are good" and "everywhere in the world, all our good is being drowned out" is the story we tell.

But

first blood optimized for revenue and earnings because twenty-four karats of reason is not "real;" fairy dusting "positivity" currency to sell indulgences is not "honest;" agreement without transparency because opacity guarantees "integrity" is not "fair."

That that passes for "real" and "honest" and fair" is fame imagined and wealth pretended and power believed; where wrongs never see justice and all our words take the cake and eat it too - this real world is the story we live.

M