Submit!

This week has been hell for Steve. The world stays the same for him, but everything else moves forward. In fact, for Steve time may be regressing. His armor shows chinks that had been rewelded. His eyes do not seek truth or sympathy or comraderie. They look down and hope to be passed without much notice. He echoes this thought, it is not what you are to people it is what you do, but no amount of coaxing or cajoling can stop the drumming and beating on the sides of his cranium, from the walls in these rooms where he sits, from the very thin air. It does not matter. There is no flying today or anytime soon. Geometric harmony will elude us yet again. Poor Steve. He doesn't have a fucking clue....

Letting go

Poetry is emotion subtly moving through my psyche.

Day is done. Nox eternum.
It is a constant chill the blows on my wet, naked soul.
No cry, no release,
No cathartic cataract tumbling from on high
to heal and wash away the memories...

...Her sun-blonded hair draping across my chest;
Her body slowly heaving on top of me...

There are things that I can never wash away.

The stain of love and regret. Of wishing
two things at once diametrically opposed.
They say that time heals all things.
That is hard to believe for an obsessive mind in love.
In love, maybe not with a person so much any more,
but an ideal.
A commingling of ought and is. (Am I not good enough?)

There are ways to break this circadian yoke, so I hear.
But they may break me in the process.
There are boundaries I just cannot cross by myself.
Standing up for me...Being me around people I do not know.

Being able to let go.

Fear/Embarrassment

Weeping. I am so deathly afraid of not being good enough: my Achilles' heel. I cannot...cannot what? It leaves me too quickly to say.

No matter what else, Steve, you must
1) Avoid embarrassment
2) Avoid confrontation
3) Avoid incompetence
4) Never show weakness.

Thinking of father...I am overwrought, embarrassed, weak, unable to control. I have no control. I know I never had control. Why does it bother me so?

Just on the other side, I almost imagine
a life, unencumbered
by doubt, regret, fear.
I almost see the face of a young man
enjoying the world unfolding
around in a mysterious symphony.

The truth sears the eyes open...
The truth of the eyes:
the deep chasm of not ever being good enough to be accepted as one.

The Foundations of Social Relations--Part II

Social relations may be categorized through several types of mechanisms, all of them seemingly contingent--based on cultural norms which even extend down to the individual level. However, we are interested in a particular type of social relation and interaction, and that is the social relations that accumulate, disperse, disguise or reveal power. Power has mutliple forms, but all of its forms enable the individual that has power to conduct in relations and interactions, and those that do not have this power are limited in their relations and interactions.

It is difficult to determine exactly how much power an individual may have. This power must be valued relative to other individuals and are informed by cultural norms. The cultural norm of most value to this valuation is the interaction and recognition between the two or more parties involved in the power relation being studied. As we are speaking of this power relation abstractly, our discussion strives to make general observations about power relations.

The Importance of Practicality in Social Relations

The foundation of social relations is the act of recognition. Recognition is one of the first and seminal events in the development of a baby's ability to interact with the world around her. From recognition comes our sense of proper address of another person. While a set of proper addresses may initially be contigent, time and practicality have made these mannerisms somewhat ubiquitous. In fact it is on practicality that our entire system of social political relations can be reduced to, given the circumstances of culture.

Whimpering Echoes

Light streaks into the room, making me restless. Another day has come, and I am in one piece. No shrieking inside my head. No insidious urges to shed this coil. I am alive, but am I living? The night before, I dared not leave the house. All energy gone, enervated, sulkily residing on the sofa.

Something is not right.

What is this new spell that is cast around me so? Am I Merlin trapped in a crystal cave of my own making? What is wrong? What is wrong? What is wrong? The question echoes and is the only reply I receive. The sound of my own thoughts disgusts me.

The Beginnings of a Theory

I had time in the previous days to start articulating my own views of the world. These views focus on the political relations and the growing schism between "academic" logico-rationality and, for a lack of better word, perceived reality of social relations. I have developed a list of observations that I endeavor to weave into a cohesive argument. Some of these observations are obvious; some are open for debate. All of these observations must be critically unpacked, however, to determine the underlying commonalities and themes to help construct my world view. To wit these observations are:
-Whereas the institution of the political academic has developed a distinct cant that resonates with only a select few;

-Whereas the theoretical scaffolding of this institution is self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating, given a lack of motivation for change;

-Whereas the academic cant is increasingly detached from the political discourse in the world;

-Whereas the current state of political discourse (the preponderance of all power relations) is bereft of genuine reflection and a weighing of policy choices;

-Whereas, through the course of human history, the chasm between the thinkers of political and ethical theory and the doers of politics has become so divided that the very language of discourse has resulted in a schism between the two realities that is either uncrossable or undesireable to cross;

-Whereas, strains of theory have highlighted the origins, methods, and raisons d'etre of this break between theoretical underpinnings of politics and the institution of political reality (exhibited through superstructures that defy prediction or usurpation);

-Whereas this schism is exacerbated by theory that attempts to define politics so abstractly as to untether it from the real social relations that affect day-to-day living;

-Whereas it is a given that the term "real social relations" defies easy definition, and it is understood that these social relationships have infinite variety, but the political landscape is defined as relationships of power, be it perceived individually or through some construct of society;

-Whereas, some forms of theory or praxis may scoff at the bifurcation of power relations, however there is a true differentiation between coercion and persuasion and must be accounted for as surely as physics must account for quantum and relativistic mechanics in astronomical calculations;

-Whereas the political discourse of day-to-day living is self-perpetuating in American politics because options for governance have been circumscribed to two choices, vying for hegemonic dominance;

-Whereas the purpose of academic postulation is to explain present circumstance but also to effect a method to address present circumstances;

-Whereas this praxis is only effective when it is portrayed through non-abstract reasoning and requires a continual rapprochemente because that is the proper place for discourse.