Hello again. It's been a long time since I last blogged, and maybe I'll explain why in due course. But I haven't been wholly idle; I've been thinking, absorbing and processing a great deal of information, so that I can understand and hopefully pass on to you the reasons why the whole concept of a 'state' is out of date.
I grew up being told that the 'system', if we can use that generic term to describe a modern-day state and all that entails (social systems, state education, taxation, 'government' etc.), was all there was. I wasn't told this explicitly, it was implicit. It was implicit in my education, it was implicit in the way people acted and thought, it was implicit in the dominant medium of communication: television.
Even though, at a very young age (I was conscious of this at 5), I knew that the 'system' sucked, I had literally nothing to support me in this knowledge. As far as I could tell, everyone bought into the belief that the system was all there was. And yet I found myself surrounded by hypocrisy: at school they preached a garbled gospel of so-called Christianity, yet it was blindingly easy to see that not only didn't they believe what they were preaching, none of the preachers (teachers) acted out the teachings either.
It was also blindingly obvious to me that adults and parents were a) totally fucked up, b) liars, c) deeply unhappy, and d) apparently oblivious to a, b and c (or at least, they didn't believe they could do anything about it).
I was astounded. I found myself living in a world of lies, deception, hypocrisy and unhappiness. All around me, disgusting things were being perpetrated in the name of business or the state; and yet people believed they were powerless to act. It was insane; I was living in a lunatic asylum. Above my infant school, Hammersmith flyover conveyed an endless stream of lead-spewing death machines into and out of the vibrant, crazy city of London. In the playground, us junior human beings breathed this poisonous cocktail as we played, before running back to our classrooms to be indoctrinated with such bogus ideologies that they were laughable. Except no one else was laughing, and I felt like crying.
In that crazy playground, on that knee-grazing, head-bashing tarmac, we acted out our fantastic games. They were all apparently based on mimicking adult themes of 'goodies' and 'baddies' and I don't know how the tradition started, but I joined in, because I loved being part of a gang, and I loved playing. Cowboys and Indians seemed kind of meaningless (but fun), when it came to simply running around sticking a finger out and going bang, or firing an imaginary bow and arrow. But within this structure, I found there was a deeper meaning for me, because I could feel the essential values of Native American culture within me. Don't ask me how, I just did. Whether it was a past-life memory, or an intrinsic connection with truth, I knew there was something essentially right in these values. And without questioning it, I took on the role of a wolf in these games. I was a peace-making wolf. I would run on all fours between the warring cowboys and Indians and get them to put down their weapons and make peace. Yeah, that's right, aged 5, that's what I did. And as far as I can remember, the kids happily went along with it. It made sense to them. Even though running around whooping and shooting was fun, this gave the whole thing an added dimension, which was meaning. Now don't think I was some kind of precious little twat, far from it. I was sensitive. But what I was doing was weaving into the pattern and fabric of the game something deeper, unconsciously.
What I'm trying to show you here is that from a very early age, I wasn't duped by the bullshit. The illusion just didn't work for me. And although I spent nearly all of the rest of my younger life trying to fit into this system, because I was told that this was all there was, it was a desperately painful and traumatic process of feeling like a square peg being forced into a round hole. And all around me there were unhappy, lying adults who patronised us kids, and acted like they were superior, when they were patently not. They were just fucked up. All they had going for them was superior strength, size and a cabal that insisted that whatever they did to you, they were right. And all around them, was a world riven by war, strife, poverty, pollution, inequality and injustice.
But there was apparently, no alternative.
Okay, let's cut to the chase. After 49 long years of being in this particular incarnation, I have finally, fully, got that the idea that the state governs, and we obey, is bull. It's an illusion. A hideous, insidious, invidious illusion that has been perpetrated upon us all... an illusion so pervading, so clever and so intricately woven, that the best analogy I am aware of, is to call it the matrix.
But folks! Lovely folks! Friends out there, old and new, met and not yet met; it IS an illusion! We are all free, and in the coming weeks, I shall offer you my further insights and hope to show you why it's OKAY TO BE YOU.
God bless you, and, in the terminology of Western tradition: Happy New Year. x
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