#416

Part of the whole picture of smoking--inhaling smoke produced from the controlled burning of plant matter--is aesthetic and neurochemical and psychological. So like, smoking being actually bad for you and a problem and everything, for you personally, is factual because using something as a crutch to get through the days of your life prevents some forms of growth, so it takes away from you, and because hurting your body causes problems which take away from you and can even lead to the breakdown of your body and be the cause of your shuffling off. 

It is also bad for society, some say. That's not compelling in two ways:

1. I don't have to give a fuck about society and what allegedly I "cost" it. Fuck that. My interaction with society is an obligation under durance vile which I suffer owing to my attachments to individuals in my monkeysphere and because of the overwhelming, unjust, despicable and unforgivable powers that society wields in self-service. Nothing in the world is as bullshit and fucked up as human society. It does everything it possibly can to make slaves and corspes out of everything on the planet and the rock itself. Only by waging constant war are human beings able to slow the process by which society eats reality alive, leaving not even a husk. I don't owe society shit, jack, larry, fuck, or ass: it takes what it wants from me by force and against my consent, forcing its wickedly attained boons upon me and soiling me with complicity thereby. If you look me in the eye and tell me it's my responsibility to protect society and its "healthcare" systems by costing those systems less money by taking care of my lungs for everybody's sake--I mean, you understand that society put the cigarettes in my hands, right? 

This brings me to:

2. Indeed, it happens to be a mark and even one of the pillars of civilization. Getting drunk off rotten fruit and burning plants in a cave only to discover that these plants are seriously chill, maaaan--that's the key to human consciousness itself. Who knows if we'd ever have bothered to build a building were it not for the feelings and desires awakened by these discoveries and the wish to refine and develop them. Visions from the beyond and the breakdown of inhibition--society may hate it, but these lie at its foundations.

Conclusion: it might be weird when you think about it, it may be a tradeoff when it comes to good health, and it definitely has its price in every way you can interpret the phrase--but it is natural. Just as it is natural for society to sustain the contradiction that enables it to exist by making it something antisocial.

It is natural for all things to be in a balance of good and evil, chaos and order, light and dark. 

Much that is natural is contradictory, paradoxical, metaphorical.

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Looking at obscure unplublished philosophers on the self.Gutenberg portal to try and decide if I want to give up the idea of commercial publishing altogether and join those ranks wholeheartedly. Most things were in cyrillic or hindi alphabets, honestly.

The first one in English was...I dunno if I want to give this oxygen by specific naming. They were Laws according to the Murphy format, except these seemed written by observing dudes like Elon Musk and Benito Mussolini and other playground-style superasshole ignoramuses whose force of personality, animal instincts, and flair for verbally manipulating bullshit into platforms saw them rise to power and influence. The laws appear to be a body of referential extramoral tenets to justify any and all selfish and hyper-self-preservative psychological norms and behaviors. The screen laid over these is that they seek to emphasize both negative and positive atttudes for interpretation and action--a neutrosophist logic.

A product of low self-esteem? A joke? An honest and, frankly, defensible philosophical arrangement, especially as it admits its own sophistry? Even though I personally bristle and rebel against every word I read, I kind of like it. This is a weird place. The other stuff I'm finding is weird too.

Might be going for this, folks. Looks like they take poetry and fiction and everything else.

Well, look. I'm not a teenager anymore, and at this time in my life their shit grinds my nerves. But the Red Hot Chili Peppers did say to give it away. While it is generally best to take any advice coming from Anthony Kiedis with, oh, a boulder of salt, broadly attending to the spirit of this exhortation is defensible and probably even correct. Factually Pointless is free and clear of ads and so it shall remain as long as the platform allows; why should the rest of my work be any different? 

Might I create confusion by publishing through amazon and also GutProj and also some other plans I'm refining to seed my writing, like a paper-and-ink version of Johnny Appleseed or a geocache Banksy? Do I make my old Ghost Hands Crew fancy a reality? 

Who cares. Let history sort it out or forget it entirely. It doesn't matter about me or anything except the work. However many ways I can try ensure the survival, propagation, and memory of the work, the more it may have a chance to illuminate and entertain more people, such as it can. That's the only point. Nothing has anything to do with whatever gain it may or may not bring me personally.

Updates forthcoming, I guess. 

*

Maybe I'll ride my bike today. See how my elbow feels about it.

Ok peace

--JL