See fish below the submariner's temple

SEE-FISH BELOW THE SUBMARINER'S TEMPLE, roughly 60cm x 50cm. Oils. finalised in 2000, maybe?

The eyes of Poseidon are deeper than guile
swimming in tears that drown every smile
while always the temple looms on the hill
in the clouds from which the rainwaters spill.

Frozen in time eternity sleeps
in the place where a god eternally weeps
on the shimmering shores of an unmapped ocean
the sand is drenched by waves of emotion.

.

... Not published in AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader.

We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes. Read 'em and weep!

One Wonders Why Oneness

If the sum of the parts is more than the whole
And some of the parts want a starring role

One has a question, it’s really quite small
For any who want to be one with the all

One wonders why oneness is set as a goal
One that one dies for, along with one’s soul

A goal that’s scored long after the game
When the self is forgotten along with the name

In trueness your youness is inside your head
Oneness and twoness is noneness: you’re dead

Minus my myness my self can’t be found
Above in the sky or below in the ground

One and one’s two, and two and one’s three ...

Note to Self

Must find out why I'm here.
Must discover where "here" is.
Must clarify what I am.
Must understand what "what" is, and why.
Must identify when now is, and how.
Must do all of the above, then die.

Not published in AWAREWOLF & OTHER CRHYMES AGAINST HUMANITY for kindle, tablet, smartphone or e-reader. We all hate poetry, right? But we might make an exception for this sick and twisted stuff. This devil's banquet of adults-only offal features more than 50 satanic sonnets, vitriolic verses and odious odes.

HOME

A sharp jab in the I

Demiurge, painting by SRS, oils on canvas, 50.5 x 40.5 cm. In the context of this post, "Where's Wally" would be a better title for this painting, "Wally" being the lost and/or non-existent Self.

According to Heraclitus you can’t step in the same river twice. Why not? Because no river is ever the same; the water is never the same – there’s always new water flowing downstream. (If the water isn’t flowing, it’s not a river). In fact, not only can’t you step in the same river twice, the same you can’t step twice into a river. Why not? Because there is no “you” that stays the same.

Physically, you’re always changing. Your body is never the same. Your blood is always flowing. Your heart is always pumping. Cells die and new cells are born all the time. And living cells are changing all the time: their biochemical processes only stop when the cell dies.

Nor is your mind ever still. New thoughts, ideas, imaginings are constantly emerging then fading away. And if you think you don’t always think, think again: you’re constantly receiving information about the “outside world” via your senses. Even when you’re asleep you’re monitoring internal processes such as breathing as well as external factors such as temperature. Your brain is a perpetual motion machine – neurons are firing all the time, in sleep and in wakefulness, even in coma.

Who are you and who is in charge?

Dialogues (monologues? multilogues?) of the self, with the self, can produce understanding, empathy, congeniality, even love. But these solipsistic conversations can also involve negative emotions---hostility, confusion, hatred, recrimination, resentment, contempt, and the like.

Many a person who believes ze is overweight, for example, experiences inner conflict. Part of the person wants to stick to a diet; another part wants to feast on fast-food. This kind of conflict frequently involves a person arguing with themself, castigating themself for being weak and unable to resist temptation. But how can this be, that a person can be in conflict with themself? To be at war implies plurality. Yet personhood is a singularity. Or so we believe. Or so we are taught and encouraged to believe. But is it true?

Meat jockeys ride again and again

Soul, Self, Consciousness, Mind and Personhood may not be the same thing, but they are the same kind of thing.

• They all refer in one way or another to the essence of a person.
• They are all of the same nature: they’re immaterial ie non-physical.
• They all do the same job: they’re meat-jockeys, riding embodied brains.
• And they’re all immortal*, at least in theory (unlike the body, which can’t keep it together after death).

To a duellist the mind doesn’t matter, it’s immaterial. Instinct and intuition are critical in a fight to the death where there’s little time to think. Also immaterial is the soul. There’s little love or joy or oneness when you’re piercing eyeballs with a rapier. The body, on the other hand, is very material to a duellist: you can’t duel without one. In fact, you can’t even duel with one: only two will duo. Duellists understand how one opposes another, which equals two.

persons unknown

Jo is writing a story about a person writing a story about a person whose name is not known.

The plot is based on the proposition that if the person fails to discover the name of the person whose name is not known, then the person whose name is not known kills the person who fails to discover the name.

One day the person who doesn’t know the name meets the person whose name is not known.

"What’s my name?" asks the person whose name is not known.

"I don’t know," replies the person who doesn't know the name.

"It’s Jo, fool!" ze says, killing the person who has failed to discover the name.

"Ah yes," ze says, before ze dies, "but now the end of the story is written, Jo, and it is you who are no more!"

HOME

See what you look at (Daemonide)

The video aims to suggest a process of self-examination, which inevitably leads to self-reflexive paradox.

Good for meditating to: Turn and look at yourself, as if turning a glove inside out. What you see is the Universe looking at you. The Eye sees the I. Me go, says Ego. But as the Tibetan Book of the Dead says, "Do not meditate, for there is nothing to meditate upon".

No, that's all rubbish. Don't believe a word of what I've just said.

The video is just about me indulging my habit for self-indulgent angst in multiple media.

The late great Robert A. Heinlein came up with the concept of “pantheistic multiple-ego solipsism”, which seems somehow to describe the painting: SEE WHAT YOU LOOK AT, oils on canvas, 46 x 35.5 cm, started in 2006 finalised in 2012. Audio composed by masterymistery: DAEMONIDE, featuring a range of midi instruments. Thanks to Antares for the Heinlein quote.

HOME