RUDIMENTS 949.

RUDIMENTS, pt. 949

(no Paradise involved)

Every so often I about just

give it up. Like now. Going

back to Elmira where it seems,

at least, like a more sensible

place and I don't need to keep

up with the sub-par Joneses,

as it goes. Mad dukes and

all those Ferdinands. There's

a place there, calling me.

-

Now, I mentioned to tell you how

nothing exists, and I intend to do

so. If I was a cigar-smoking man,

about now I'd light up one of

those long-burning, expensive

ones, to tide me over for the

onslaught. All the days I poked

around in NYC, I spent a lot of

lost moments looking for things

like answers. Some of them were

church kinds of things. Funniest

item in the world is how, in most

parts of the center sections of the

city, and Philadelphia too, now to

mention it, there are churches and

church edifices every 1500 feet, it

seems  -  along the broad avenues,

clustered and regal, high, soaring,

impressive. Even Elmira, at its

old city center, was a fort of

churches. Denominations and

anti-slavery places, where the

great northern Abolitionists

preached and fomented their

sedition and civic unrest, in a

manner you'd never get away

with today  -  Homeland Security,

due to insecurity, would have

you in a snatch, and, probably

if you were a woman, they'd

have your snatch too, and get

away with it in the name of

National Security. It's funny

now how we allowed that sort of

totalitarian-type control to seep in

and not even be thought about.

I think that's called 'insidious' or

'invidious,' or one of those, close.

The whole idea of these churches,

however, was display; not much

else but pride actually. There was

no tie-in to the story line of birth

or creation or well-being of the

spiritual kind. The key object was

money; was showing off, was

comparing your own status

against those of others. In a

place like a congregated and

mercantile city, as well, the

usefulness of all that garment

and materialism shopping was

in having it out on the display-day

Sundays, when one or more of

your household servants and

dressers would put it out for

you and maybe even help you

adorn yourself in it. That was

the extent of church and religion,

and don't tell Papa. If any of

it was highbrow it was the

lowest form of highbrow then

known to man.

-

The concept of 'God' and 'Deity,'

although it got a broad billing,

was actually far behind the rest of

all this and was granted a lip-service

at best. There was, and probably

still is, a curious vein of America

life equating good-fortunes, riches,

and business success with a proper

form of righteous divinity. If

you were 'no good,' it was thought,

your efforts and appearances in

turn would reflect your position as

a non-elect. As time went on, all

that ever occurred was the deepening

and enrichening of the God and

origination stories.  In so many

respects, that embellishment was

really the only reality these stories

had. You see, as it all went along,

everything was translated downward

into the situation of 'God' operating

in purely human ways and with

purely human motivations  -  as

if this Earth-tending was the one

and all-consuming task of the

Deus guy. Here's the rub:

not true.

-

Mankind has been called the

Crown of Creation. Not sure why,

no, but  -  still got that cigar?  -

it has been. Granted, we make

pretty good bombs and guns, know

how to split hairs and fight over

borders, maintain ideologies, and

destroy the Earth. But apparently

none of that counts for anything,

certainly not as anything detrimental

to the Human cause. Yet. God

would have known all this, or

should have, by our designs of

Him anyway. BUT, a true God

would really need none of this;

not evidences, not tangibles,

not sequences, not any this-for-

that stuff. Embroiling all Creation

in a 'ONE,' and a cosmic 'One'

to be sure, all this God would

have had to do  -  and it would

probably have taken maybe 10

minutes of God-time  -  was to

make a 'Human' format being

with the capability built-in to

accept everything. Causation.

A perennial offshoot of the

controlling acceptance of every

new and latest contingency as

it arose. Every form of Godness

and origination, and thus all

the religions and inflammatory

aspects of same, the ideas of

things like box, shoes, logic,

trees, steel and water. If I told

you that backwards was forwards

and water was round and fire was

cold and hollow was solid, and

if I did it all blessedly enough,

it would be believed and taken

up, purely by the factor of the

Human aspect of reciprocation

and validation. The psychology

of Life is based on the shared

and inter-personal assumptions

of billions of people at any one

time and  -  if this 'God' figure

was wise, which is sui generis

to the thing itself, It would have

known all this; needing to do

not a darned thing after the one

point A of input origination.

We were given all we'd ever

need to much things up. There

was no Paradise involved, nor

any reality either.

-

So, anyway, it was a slow drive

and a short trip for me to enter

the halls of craziness. I did it on 

the Bowery. There had been a fight, 

and a man was there, lying on the

sidewalk, atop much broken-bottle

glass, and blood; I figured 'his' blood.

Short of alcohol, it's usually blood

that seeped from these guys, wounded

or in any other kind of in-extremis

scene. No one did a thing, not

even stopping. I just stood there.

Crying. I had become overwhelmed

and confused by everything, and I

truly felt something inside my

head snap. What that snap may

have been, it's never returned to

set me back a'right. I was a

damage, to be sure, but a damage, 

as I saw it, in the right direction,

and a direction away from all this

human bullshit I'd been attempting

to deal with. That was my last foray

into marketable reality.