Predictions (A Pick 'n' Mix)

Humankind are materially omnipotent

Nature returns to itself

The body becomes a template for fetish and pleasure

The efforts of humankind are undone with new growth

The mind is a contingency for potential and possibility

A layer of detritus becomes new sediment

There is no break between the organic and the artificial

On the surface humans walk as equals to nature

Technology has made all of one weave within a virtual realm
Yet still operating at the level of the body and its senses

Morality has no consequence as all desires are catered for

There is no augmentation or manipulation

Information is currency in this free association of minds

Natural selection regains its place as arbiter of fate

Society is once more the weave of art and religion into tradition

There is no separation and therefore no science

Change is absolute and necessary
Values interchangeable

Circle of Protection

I)
The wolves surround him only in the dead of night
When he is alone in the circle of jagged stones.
Only once have paws broken the circle
(Once was enough for an eternity of shuddering)

Something rises and falls within him
A something which vanishes without the misty breath
Of proud canines waiting, watching him with hungry stare;
A something he cannot find alone in his tower
When the sentinels are at the gate

Yet here he is alone, with the wolves and the cosmos
And the moon

He searches through the night
Like a dancer, like a philosopher
Like both at once
The danger his divine inspiration
His body his parchment
His body his inquiry
Embodied, frightened, inescapable

He knows and feels the struggles
Feels the tingles, the scorching biles
He feels close to death
He fears the howls, and the growls
He hates the stench of dog
He wants to destroy them for defying him
Searching for what it is within which makes him so

Why does it not just go away?
Why can his will not wrestle it down?
Why can it not be dreamed away?

A voice answers to himself, from a place of paradox
Within him and yet not him:
'As the taste of water cannot but help grace your lips
As the chill night air cannot help but cover your skin
As your heaving breast cannot help rising and falling
So your sixth sense cannot turn away from peril'

He asks: 'what is that sense, that sixth sense inside?
What does it find, what does it seek'

He is fortunate tonight; another answer!:
'It seeks the world outside.
And what is it made of but Nature itself?
The push of a creature, its natural desires
The torch that cannot be put out
The striving, the unfolding
Its dignity, its distinction
Against the hostility of all things;
The hostility of a world'

A world beyond! A world sensible by intuition
That cannot be an illusion
Something other than he, perhaps more powerful
The creator which will destroy him
A world inescapable, irresistable
Situations and circumstances
And he laments his condition

II)
In the circle of protection the wolves creep
The wise ones wait, a fool may attack
The fool is the danger, the sight of mangy fur his biggest fear
The circle is not enough
His sixth sense knows it, and he searches for something else
A sign, a weapon, a shield, a hole to hide away
He cannot find one
He must find one

Regeneration?
He fears the wounds
Though the body-hurt heals
Heals itself, the wounds heal,
But fear of wounds never does

Strength?
He fears his lack of strength
Though he is strong
He fears his fear of lack of strength!
Sometimes it prevails
But strength tested eventually fails.

Retreat?
He fears what will happen to his spirit
To fly, and fly again, ever afraid
Ever weak and hopeless
He can never outrun the shadow of fear

Lute-song?
He fears the echo of his favourite strains
Will forever haunt him and contain wolves
In between their notes

Allies?
It is dark
There are none here

Virtue?
Something lights in his chest
The pulsing of virtue
Embedded in his heart
Virtue, his ally, his sole ally
Is this his passage from the wolves?

The voice speaks mockingly:
'What do the flesh-eaters know of virtue?
Whatever your disposition, they seek only your flesh!
What good virtue shone upon unscrupulous men
Let alone wolves?'

The dancer and the philosopher answers
Flitting between the jagged stones, growing ever surer
'I am virtuous, I may die peacefully
I may be blasted from my body into the sparkling yonder
Of the earthly heavens.
From the tale I draw purpose and from the purpose i draw virtue
Did you not know that all life was a story, and virtue the rules of its collective author?
Did you not know that I have one choice, to embody virtue whatever the peril?
I could at least always do that!
Fire cannot harm me, nor water drown me,
The gale cannot push me, the earth cannot swallow me
Though they rend my body, I am virtue embodied!'

He grew in confidence, skirting closer and closer to circle's edge
The wolves looked one to the other in concern
The wise one smiling a wry smile

iii)
His heart raced, his blood flowed keenly
And he gained a suit stronger than any mail
Harder than iron, enduring like stone
Virtue, virtue filled him!

He smiled to himself

The wolves never left that night
But he walked through them all the same
And the solemn creatures watched him vanish
Toward the light of the moon
Fearlessly sleeping like a child between the roots of an oak
Trustingly waiting the day

Selim 'Selim' Talat

The Freedom To What?

Freedom of choice is acclaimed in our society as something good. The greater the quantity of choice, the better. More TV channels, more species of chocolate bar, more movies to watch, more persons to fornicate with, and so forth. However, I think this acclaim is highly misguided. Freedom of choice is not a bad thing, I just do not think it is necessarily always a good thing. The ability to choose between various options is not in and of itself of any value, especially if those choices are poor (see all those TV channels!) A simple example of this is as follows: in scenario A you have a choice between a thousand poisons. In scenario B you have a choice between two cups of tea. However much you may dislike tea (a highly unrealistic proposition, but bare with it!) the latter scenario would be superior, despite the fact that there was less choice involved. Just having more things to choose does not mean our situation is any better.

So why do we as a society value freedom of choice, spectrum of choice, and quantity of choice as if it were the single most important facet of being happy and human? Why but because we are what we consume, rather than what we create. We have created a society of, if you'll excuse the cliche, nectar obsessed drones and all of us are responsible. Materialistic, individualistic hedonism is the dominator of our Age, and desperate shallowness the engine of growth. The freedom to have desires satisfied has been placed above the freedom to be left alone to develop and create wonderful things. We tolerate ever more intrusions into our privacy from ever more powerful states and corporations (provided we get our banal TV channels and little treats on the weekend). We have willingly given away true power, democratic power, for comfortable pleasure.

For the average citizen what is there to live for beyond pleasure and status-chasing, in this part of the world they happen to call the West? With little sense of belonging to society or to a meaningful narrative; with no natural blossoming of joy from the mastery of skills and creation of art, we must be given false joy by being constantly overwhelmed by material things and fleeting desires. And in order to shift these things upon us we must first feel inadequate, incomplete. An entire media industry exists to this end, trying to make us feel like we are missing out on something someone else has got; perverting our natural competitive streak into something far more ruthless and twisted.

A huge question mark now hangs over our heads: how long is this going to go on for before we are awakened? In truth, we already are waking up. But we are not enlightened just yet. We still have this entitlement to the bountiful gifts of the earth, and feel like we have earned the right to destroy natural beauty and creatures for the sake of an appetite which can never be fulfilled. Desire is still seen as an end in itself, rather than something to be channelled away harmlessly (or in the extreme, to be flushed away like any other bodily waste).

In this age of desire fulfillment, no one has the moral ground to attack any other. Desire is a universal malaise. The poor are just as desirous as the rich, women just as much as men. We are all desirous. The major problem is not that in our current state some people can fulfill their desires more than others. Balancing out the level of destructive hedonism is not going to make things that much better. The problem is that for the average citizen the highest value is desire fulfillment - rather than scientific endeavour, philosophical discovery, artistic creation, natural belonging, and so on. This is why freedom to choose between pleasures is problematic; it is no real freedom at all, enslaving us all to unfulfillable desire.

I am not arguing that freedom is a bad thing. I am not arguing that oppression of freedom, or conservative fear of freedom, is any form of solution to our goalless hedonism. I believe that individual freedom for all should be the end goal of justice. We should be free to be choose, but we should not use that liberty to choose poorly (the maxim 'harm ye none, do as ye will' sums it up perfectly). Nor should we see quantity of choice as important as quality. This doesn't mean that I believe we should never choose pleasurable (or even self-destructive) options, only that it should never be our ultimate goal, nor a regular occurence, nor something to be proud of.

We can be truly glorious -

We are in this part of the world they happen to call the West, perhaps the most imperialistic gathering of civilizations there ever was. The world has imitated our vices and vitues to a large extent, and because of this we are arrogant enough to consider ourselves the centre of the world - which is not entirely untrue. We needn't continue practicing our vices, which fuel wars in distant parts of the world for material enrichment. With a new value system, we could create a heroic individualism of universal Justice, which measures wealth in human cultivation; education, art, philosophy, science, and sees pleasure as a mere sideshow to these more pressing desires. To choose such greatness is to choose wisely. Our highest honour could be to those most virtuous, not those most self-important and parasitic (the rich!) With our power we could lead the world, not trammel it. We could answer the nihilism of God's death with a heroic humanism and environmental belonging, filling the void in our souls with a spiritual reconnection to the earth and its creatures.

The highest praise we might bestow should be upon the astronauts who risk everything to ascend to the final frontier, the scientists who work toward the nuclear fusion which will end our energy needs, the philosophers who help us make sense of a rapidly changing world and our place in it, the great artists who bring these human achievements to light, and everyone who ever lived for more than just themselves. We must turn away from the vapid, empty, soulless celebrities whose mere mention is enough to soil the whole of this newsletter, and who will leave us empty in our graves if we do not turn away from their sick light. We would have wasted it all for nothing.

The problem is that this transformation of our values requires us to challenge the comfortable, shiny, glamourous world we are fooled into thinking actually exists. I think this would take a heroic departure from evolution's path, the reversal of the natural instinct from danger to security, familiarity to newness, pain to pleasure. We would have to let go of all of our most comforting myths. We would have to be brave to even begin such a change, but brave in an intellectual sense, more than a 'run into a burning building to save a child' sense.

Selim 'Selim' Talat