by Kluwe, Chris
Here’s the thing: I really don’t care what your personal opinion is on anything. If you want to believe that the Flying Spaghetti Monster will condemn us all to the Molten Mozzarella Pits for not sacrificing daily at its altar, more power to you! If you want to believe gay people getting married will usher in an eternal age of terror, that’s your choice to make (I may not agree with the choice, but it’s yours). But the instant, the very instant you change that opinion into an action—the moment you make laws forcing someone to worship at your altar, or restricting people’s right to marry whom they want, or taking away freedoms and protections due to skin color or sexuality; that coldly self-involved second when you treat me (or anyone else) as a thing, as an object, as a slave with no right to self-determination or free will—well, my friend, that’s when my intolerance kicks into high gear.
Let me tell you a little story about mirrors. When you look into a mirror, every reflected action comes from one source—you. That person you see looking back at you will treat you exactly how you treat him. If you smile, or wave, or laugh, the reflection reacts with appropriate good cheer. Make angry faces or scream, and you quickly find yourself the subject of every barb and indignity you’re trying to heap upon the shoulders of another. If you find yourself bristling under the scorn, the contempt, the lack of respect, don’t blame the mirror. All it’s reflecting is you.
The Darkness and the Light
Tonight I was lying in bed trying to think up a solid way to launch into an exploration of the traveling life of a football player as my wife watched her shows on the DVR (Big Bang Theory, the Daily Show, Modern Family, and the Colbert Report, for those interested). Basically, I wanted to write something about how I fly all over the country but I pretty much see only the interiors of hotel rooms and locker rooms; name a tourist trap I’d enjoy checking out, and I probably have no idea what you’re talking about.
Then, as I got into the piece, I realized I needed to do some traveling of a different sort—I had to move from the bed because I was getting distracted by the TV (I enjoy listening as my wife watches, but it tends to focus my concentration toward the TV and away from the writing).
Luckily, since I write on a laptop, moving to the family room was accomplished with relative ease and minimal spousal strife, affording me ample solitude to work on the traveling piece. Sitting on the couch with the lights off, the monitor glow my lone island of illumination, focused fully on the task at hand, I was ready to start deriving meaning from formlessness.
Only now I wanted to write about something else.
I was suddenly reminded of a picture I had seen on Twitter several days before. It was of author Neil Gaiman curled up on his couch writing a new Sandman book (if you haven’t read the Sandman series, you should; they’re awesome graphic novels) in the dark—and it amazed me how similarly the creative process was playing out for me.
I knew I wasn’t going to write about flying; I wanted to write about writing (how meta!).
Alone in the dark with only my thoughts, no outside distractions creeping in, my own private interpretation of the universe ready to spring forth from my mind, awaiting only the proper electrical impulses to transfer thought into action—is this what all writers, all spinners of fables and yarns, crave? That tiny darkness inside our heads that envelops the spark of imagination, itself surrounded by the sensory deprivation we need while we go about the act of creation? Do we subconsciously harken back to the primal days of our ancestors as they gathered around the campfire while unseen creatures’ noises echoed through an undefined night?
It’s as though we’re ancient men, travelers in a hostile world, slaves to our environment, spinning tales of Fox and Coyote (Trickster!), Lion and Bear (Strength!), Owl and Crow (Wisdom!) as shadows beat at the edges of flickering light, telling stories that, perhaps, can cage the darkness surrounding us, give it a name, make knowable the unknown.
Is that what we as writers look for? The mad unknown? The huge, hazy shapes of ideas our minds long to grasp, the wriggling words we try to pin on transient mediums? Is that why many of us, consciously or not, re-create that same prototypical world, the physical darkness all around? In order to communicate in a shared language every one of us upright apes instinctually understands, the language of concept and metaphor?
(I wish I could accurately describe how difficult it is to get thoughts from my head onto the screen in front of me when it comes to ideas like this. The best way I can describe it is it’s like trying to wrestle a fog bank into a condensed ball; I’m constantly trying to corral and define the edges in order to create a recognizable shape, and it fights back at every turn. Seriously, in my head, I just went from football and television pop culture to the metaphysical roots of how stories are told. The darkness does not give up its secrets easily.)
When trying to write, many people never go looking for that primal act of creation, that tiny spark amid a roiling sea of black. Instead, they shut out the world within them, drown it in the glitzy flash of blinking lights and empty noise, banish it beneath the harsh glare of outrospection. Someone sits down to craft a novel, or a play, or a movie, or even a Tweet, but he gets distracted by the mundanity around him, the sheer overwhelming chaos of it all (which is not to say that you can’t write while listening to music or whatever; I’ve just noticed that when I do that, it’s a lot harder and the writing tends to be more about the influences around me).
Or, worst of all, someone stops writing because he listens to that tiny voice that says, What you’re writing isn’t any good because someone else has already said it.
Well, you shouldn’t listen to that voice, because while it’s partially right, it’s also wrong. The stories we craft, the webs we weave, they are all drawn from the same common threads scattered throughout our shared histories. There’s no such thing as originality in the components of a story—our distant ancestors saw to that long ago with those ancient fireside tales.
No, the originality comes from what you bring to the table, the perspective you look out on the darkness with, the way you wrestle that fog into a shape no one has ever seen before.
So the next time you’re struck with a thought, trying to tackle a concept, or just want to explore your own mind, let yourself. Turn out the lights and go in a direction you never saw coming. Go traveling.
What you find in the dark may surprise you.
A Jaunt/y/ Past Time
A hazelnut scream in a chocolate dream and I realize I’m visiting abstract again. A cold wind blows amid the treasure troves, and the fire dragons curling around them tell me dreams of sleep shall never make me weep. The mournful dirge moans low. My mind is constructing a sea chantey and penning it in epic form; I’m not really sure why. Thoughts crystallize and resume lucidity for a transient instant in the fog. It pierces like an ice tower, fac(e)ts blinding in the passing sun.
Why can’t we make our language work for us? We get too caught up in one meaning of a word when a word is so many other words clustering together in a nested matryoshka shell of infinitely branching trees; narrowing it down to one bare shaven twig would rob our minds of the very luster of words.
Distinction.
I stare at it in my head and see the countless layers behind the wor(l)d that meld into one amorphous whole. If you could walk ninety degrees around the side of the wor(l)d, you would see it expanded, composed of thin layers, each slice its own definition. Our writing and reading (in three dimensions, these two are layered on top of each other along with logic, reason, way of life, still trapped by linearity even now!, as one simultaneous instant of recognition) are two-dimensional, why can’t we add the third? Flat words on flat screens rolling steadily onward, a to b to c; line(a)r; dry.
(I wo/a/nder what you will see in that rulesbound (smashthem) attempt at/to/ ig
((Lower down I am even more curious as to which subconscious is responsible for symbol recognition))
(((Can one create a shared meaning if each cypher is u
nique?)))
((((Is there a balance between one|all?))))
Every word is a painting, an intertwining masterpiece of past present future, yet paintings go for one thousand times the price of words. Richly jeweled treasures valued at monochromatic coals; is it any wonder we don’t know how to talk to each other? So [many] trapped by [locked] minds unable to grasp all those glittering facets. So [much] [lost].
My cypher unlocks this p/i
How to Serve Man
Hello, future alien invader/tyrannical despot/machine overmind. If you’re reading this, then no doubt you’d like to know the best way to fatten up humanity for your inevitable consumption of said humanity’s delicious meaty bits.
Don’t fret! I’m here to help, and it’s actually a very simple process.
The first thing you’ll want to do is procure a charismatic leader. Human beings love to fall all over themselves abdicating responsibility to someone who has a deep baritone voice, a fancy mustache, or, possibly, a funny hat. Bonus points if the guy has been on television or radio at some point—everyone loves a mass-media personality. The actual issues aren’t important; the main thing is that your avatar should look good while discussing them. You see, humanity has a thing for the appearance of something over its actual substance. We humans are crazy for the conniving, suckers for the superficial, devourers of the deceitful. If the outward appearance tells a beautiful story, we don’t care what the underlying moral might be. Good, evil, indifferent—it doesn’t matter. Give us a sound bite and we’re good to go.
Why think about the real when we can make a snap judgment about the illusion?
The second thing you’ll want to do is give your figurehead an impressive title—something like king, queen, pope, bishop, general, or president. For whatever reason, humans love to follow someone with a title. It doesn’t really matter what that title is, or even if it’s legitimate; the important thing is that your stalking horse has some sort of fancy name. Hell, look at all the terrible people throughout human history who have convinced millions to follow them by claiming that some sort of moral authority or power has been conferred on them from an invisible being—it’s foolproof! As Living Colour so famously sang, you want a cult of personality. Stalin, Mao, Hitler—exploiters, revered leaders, influencers all, their true selves clearly visible to those who cared to look. Here’s a hint: not many cared to look.
The third thing, and this is very important, is to make sure your figurehead is always consistent in his beliefs, no matter how asinine those beliefs may be. He insists that the world was created seven thousand years ago and disregards the massive amount of physical evidence suggesting that’s not the case? Not a problem. He states that other races are less than human because their skin is a particular color in the visible spectrum? Don’t even worry about it. He declares that crazy alien overlords live in a volcano and the only way to escape them is to donate more and more money to the person in charge? As long as your candidate sticks to his guns, people won’t give a single fuck.
You see, it’s not about whether your figurehead is right or wrong; it’s about how much he believes. As long as he believes in something 100 percent, it doesn’t matter if the facts match reality. All people care about is if he is all in, if he’s dedicated himself entirely to an ideal, no matter how outlandish, no matter how ludicrous, no matter how idiotic. All they want is someone who can stand in front of a thousand cameras and say, “This is the truth as I see it,” even if that person is absolutely irrational and self-destructive. They want to know that they aren’t alone in their stupidity, that someone else shares their neuroses and flaws. They want the comfort of the herd.
The wonderful thing about humanity, the absolutely glorious fact that no one seems to know, is that humanity wants to serve. People want to obey. They don’t want to look at the hard questions in life and try to figure out answers.
No, human beings want someone to tell them what to do. They want direction, guidance, a master.
Humanity is lazy. Human beings want a savior to tell them, “This is right, and this is wrong. This is grace, and this is sin. This is Heaven, and this is Hell.” They want a leader to shout, “The Jews are evil—throw them in a furnace and strike the match.” They want a prophet to declare, “Women are unclean, cover them lest you be tempted to sin, and deny them their freedom lest they tempt you to damnation.” They need a leader to shine a light on their darkest desires and their secret hopes and tell them that it’s okay to indulge in their hate, and then, oh boy, will they ever indulge.
Are you that leader? If you can provide a path, a blueprint, a way to realize that intolerance, then humans will follow you into whatever oven you want to roast them in (preferably with a sprig of parsley and just a hint of garlic butter). A sheep doesn’t question where the herd is taking it, it just follows in contentment, baaing all the way off the cliff. A sheep wants the blind certitude of certainty, the dull comfort of routine, the unthinking small-mindedness of similarity. A sheep is a simple beast and doesn’t care to think past the next meal and where it will lie down to sleep.
A sheep wants a shepherd, and that’s what you have to provide—a crook to guide the herd, a staff to beat the wayward back in line, a strong voice the meek will obey without question. If you want to serve man, search for his deepest desires, his basest motivations, his willingness to subsume himself in an idea that will never be in his best interests, and then give him someone to follow.
He’ll thank you all the way into your stomach.
Bang Bang
WARNING: THERE ARE NAUGHTY WORDS IN THIS AND IF THAT OFFENDS YOU, TOUGH SHIT.
Dear Second Amendment Gun Nuts,
I’m sick and tired of you guys being assholes. Gun violence in the United States continues to increase (I’m writing this on the day of the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting), and the only thing you self-righteous fucks want to do is piss and moan about how your precious right to carry a death machine is being taken away from you.
Stop it.
Seriously, stop it. I understand that guns are tools, and that a gun requires a human being to pull the trigger, but every time one of these tragedies occurs, we as a nation are prevented from having any sort of meaningful dialogue about it because cum-gargling shitmilitias immediately start attacking anyone who even hints that stricter gun control might not be such a bad idea. “ERMAGERD, IF THEY TAKE ERR GUNZ WE CAN’T FIGHT THE FEDARALIS WHEN THEY INVADE THE COMPOUND!! SLIPPERY SLOPE!! SECOND ’MENDMENT!! SECOND ’MENDMENT!!”
Listen up, fuckwits. The Second Amendment is absogoddamnlutely worthless in this day and age. If the government ever wanted to seriously oppress you, IT HAS TANKS AND AIRPLANES. Your kitted-out AR-15 with folding bipod, bitchin’ thermal scope, and custom-engraved Dale Earnhardt bald eagle on the grip will do approximately jack and shit to any sort of modern mechanized force, especially one operating within its own logistical-supply theater. The only thing your gun is good for is killing someone who isn’t from the government, and citizens having guns so they can kill people who aren’t from the government is pretty much exactly the opposite of what the Second Amendment is for.
Pop quiz number one: Do you know what the tech level was when our Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment? Single-shot muskets. The Second Amendment guaranteed citizens the right to bear arms because they could effectively hold their own against an oppressive government force. Both sides would be equipped with the same weaponry, and a well-armed citizen militia would actually stand a fighting chance of defeating a power-hungry president or rogue federal agency.
Pop quiz number two: Do you know what you need to blow up a mainline M1A1 Abrams battle tank? SOMETHING LARGER THAN A FUCKING GLOCK, YOU STUPID MOUTH-BREATHER. There’s no longer parity between the amount of force available to a citizen of the United States and the amount of force at the disposal of the United States government. If the government seriously wants to oppress you, it’s going to fucking oppress you. Bend over, spread your
ass cheeks, and try not to cry too much. The drones will be recording it all, and you don’t want to embarrass yourself.
Pop quiz number three: If a SWAT team hits the wrong house (which has happened multiple times) and kicks open your door in the middle of the night, how friendly will these men be when they see you pointing something threatening at them? Do not try to kill the SWAT team. That’s absolutely asinine. The solution is better police oversight and education, not a Bushmaster with armor-piercing rounds; if you try that, you’ll find out firsthand what “You’ll get my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers” actually means.
So let’s call it like it is. No more hiding behind “Well, if the government takes our guns, how can we prevent the tyrants from taking over?” The tyrants are already in control, and they have been for a while. No, the reason you want to keep flooding the streets with easily accessible guns is that you’re too fucking lazy to think for yourselves. You’d rather buy into the NRA propaganda machine and spin yourself a nice little fantasy, one where you single-handedly defeat the dastardly hordes of black-suited, sunglasses-wearing federal soul snatchers who come to tell you freedom ain’t ringin’ no more and yet somehow avoid any repercussions from committing multiple homicides. Or perhaps, in your fantasy, you’re living the James Bond life, sipping a martini while a supermodel hangs off your arm and strokes your engorged nine-millimeter.
Pop quiz number four: Any idea who funds the NRA? PEOPLE WHO MAKE MONEY FROM SELLING GUNS. Seriously—go look it up, it’s right on the NRA Web site.
Imagine that. A group of businesses that have vested interests in seeing that guns are easily available for people to buy supporting an organization that pushes legislation to make guns easier to buy. Despite the fact that, you know, their product is used to kill people, and has been used to kill people—over, and over, and over. Details, details, the devil’s always in the details.
