Tag: philosophy

“The Speech” (A Short Story)

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by Martin Anton Smith

The other day I went & listened to an anonymous someone.

Beamed in from somewhere & someplace.

For it was a blue plasma ball that snapped into human form –

Right before our incredulous eyes.

Yes, it was quite the speech.

As I listened I had the thought:

“Were they wise or just mad?” –

Alas as to which one I still cannot be so sure.

But I can at least tell you his words verbatim,

For I recorded them while I listened along with everyone.

Something told me this is what I should do.

.They went as follows…….

Greetings oh people of the past,

Forgive me this interruption –

But the exigencies of your situation have forced my hand.

Your blindness has conjured my departure from my time.

For I came from a time where perfidious petty battles have been long since mastered.

We roundly squabed our decks free of your current squabbles, to use ye olde maritime lingo.

I must bust you out of your wide-awake sleep-dreams.

My goal is to have you reconfigured – renatured if you will.

And so my message can begin.

“Hell is other people”?.

Hell. Is. Other People.

This my friends & adversaries in the gallery, this is perhaps the most true statement ever.

Far truer than Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls”

More propitious than Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or death..”

And robustly in line with Bukowski’s maxim about spiritual death before actual death of the everyman.

Yes, you may be surprised to know that in the future we value Bukowski right next to Paine.

And so, we must thank Jean Paul Satre for coining the term “Hell is other people”.

According to your own words:

Humans have apparently been ‘civilised’ for a long time.

So, some of your Anthropologists say.

But of course, even your Geologist’s & Physicists would gaffaw at this statement.

For is Is ten thousand years a long time?

Not really.

You think this way because you cranial Lilliputians still think time “flows”.

You think the future is burped from the past,

And its quality determined by whether the menu had Spaghetti or Steak.

But I digress.

Back to the topic of civility.

Yes, ladies & gents – the experience of your life life tells you civility is a rare cultural ore.

Perhaps even as rare as Tritium 3.

Although incidentily this is not rare where, I mean when I come from – we harvest it freely from the moon.

Statistically we are lucky if perhaps 1% of your current Humanity is civilised.

But the number is of course much much lower.

Now as the 20th Century Americans liked to say

“let’s now have a Pop Quiz:

Were you teachers civilised?

No they were lazy bufoons, desperately afraid of the real world.

Were your parents civilised

No – they worked at jobs they hated.

Were your friends civilised?

No they wanted you to get nowhere in life – just like them.

Were your workmates civilised?

No they were on the modern day slavery hamster wheel & didn’t even know it!

Sorry pals – your early 21st Century indubitably not civilised, at least beyond a wafer thin veneer.

We in the future define basic civility broadly as this:

“Those non-roboticised or non-cyborg-ised human beings who on the whole are in control of their emotions, & not the reverse. Those who work to improve the welbeing humankind”.

Oh I see a few raised eyebrows – yes sorry to let you know of this but in the future the Robots & Cyborgs have the numbers over the humans.

I don’t think I’ll get in trouble for confirming that – after all you people are already half way there nowadays.

On the subject of 21st Century Civility, we notice there are many false alters.

Your leaders need to know that Civility is not really anything to do with advancing technology.

For the caveman simply had less shoulders to stand on than Dirac or Ford or the Wrights or Gates, Jobs or Musk.

If I can talk like one of you let me summarise this by saying:

What good is it if a man knows the secrets of the universe but is a social ogre out to destroy?

Perhaps he knows so much he plug into “free zero point energy” or spaceship to “Zeta Reticuli”.

Yet no one can stand to sit with him in a room for more than 1 to the minus 34 femtoseconds.

Oh dear – another cat is out of the bag! – Yes you have people harvesting free energy & travelling the cosmos.

That was the next project after Los Alamos – held in secret from the public.

I ask all of you people here – Is man in the 21st Century really civilised?

Were the men who worked on the ‘Manhatten Project’ civilised?

There is a clear argument against this despite the accolades, they were the reverse of civility.

Boldly our view in the future is this – this passage is written on a monument to your era:

The men of Los Alamos rode their low EQ all the way to the gates of hell,

Jumped over those gates unannounced,

Shook hands with the Devil & proclaimed:

“Our leader we have done your bidding & created the Hell Weapon”

To which the evil one could have replied

“I am happy with your anti civilisation you are all my fat men & little boys,

you have followed my will perfectly”.

Mmm hmm, that’s right, yes my 21st Century sir & maddam – you usually confuse status with goodness & decency.

We in the future cannot understand you adoration of unneccesary social hierarchies.

These Los Alamos types are the anti-lords of earth & you blessedly boost them in the echo chambers,

By medallion bearing Machiavellian monsters all riding the optic fibers & satellite feeds.

So the wielding of High tech & high tech weaponry & social climbing is not proof of your ‘Civilisation’.

But the garden variety of Human Un-civilisation is galactically even more common.

And excuse me if I again adopt 21st Century lingo.

The guy that loses his sh*t at the cashiers coz he hates his job, that’s uncivilised;

The Karen that rings the cops on a neighbour, thats uncivilised;

The office narc who engineers someone out of their job, that’s uncivilised;

The bogan who kicks his dog because he can, that’s uncivilised;

This is the walled garden of your un-civilisation – the wild flowers of 21st Century discontented daily life.

I contend you 21st-ers (that’s what we call you) are at best like the contradiction of the nuclear power plant –

one part alien technology & one part steam age,

For it is simply Einstein’s brain crystallised by the equation e – mc squared,

Strapped on to an essentially 19th century steam turbine,

Which turns a coil on a axl around a magnetic housing so to make electricty for us all.

I think your Homo Sapian brains are just the same –

Your best human brains are still as a ‘Einstein strapped to a Lizard’.

And that is the core problem – BOTH your Einstein AND the Lizard brain need to be tamed.

Tamed to be civilised.

Tamed to be civilised.

Tamed to be civilised.

I said that three times for effect – for you people don’t understand your ally cat wild-ness.

For all your anthropological, Physic-o-Technical, Spiritual & Artistic efforts have so far failed.

That rogue Einsteinian Lizard in your brains, is the eternal monkey on your back.

And so you yet remain uncivilised in according to your media – the very futuristic sounding year, of twenty twenty four.

And in closing, let me regale you a tale.

This is a popular tale from 21st Century, written by one of your own only one year ago.

It goes as follows:

I was one day walking along the riverbank,

& I saw something from the corner of my mind’s eye.

It was a shining resplendent floating dictionary,

I believe it fell from an angel’s pocket.

Anxious to know what they thought of us, I flicked to the word.

Humans (n). Mostly Uncivilised bipeds of Planet Earth holding poorly designed bootstrapped brains. Prone to emotional outbursts & non logical reasoning. Live in an oasis of plenty yet choose to hide under rocks. Biggest ritual is to sling their own shit at each other while screeching loudly. Slated by the Galactic Council to soon to be totally reconfigured as to be totally unrecognisable from their present state.

I felt warm inside as I thought to myself “See I was right after all”.

I went & ate a sandwich & drank a coffee at the cafe, feeling mighty proud of myself.

I sat & waited for something to happen.

I got bored & went home & cracked open a beer.

I sat & waited for something to happen.

Nothing happened.

I cracked open another beer.

I waited

…nothing happened

I cracked open another beer.

I was now 3 am.

I looked around for the angel’s dictionary.

I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I’m such a dolt –

Why didn’t I look up the angels definition of ‘soon’?.

As I’ve always said.

If you’re going to be wiped out, it’s nice to know when.

Oh well, what can you do?

I cracked open another beer & drifted asleep.

I don’t know if it was part of the dream or not but an angel floated in the room.

It said nothing & simply reached under my seat,

I heard the rattle some empty cans being moved out of the way.

‘Aha there it is’ I telepathically heard the angel say.

I saw it float towards the door.

“Wait” I said.

The angel turned around.

“What is it?”

“When will it all happen” I said strangely confidently.

“When all your beer tastes sour, it will be so” said the angel.

I nonchalantly took a swig & replied.

“I knew you’d screw me around with an answer I couldn’t rely on”

“What – you think we’d tell you guys what’s going on? You’re far too uncivilised for that!”.

“Fair call” I said & cracked open another beer & watched it dissipate like steam.

I know what you’re thinking.

“Was the beer sour?”

Well why would I tell you that?. . .after all it’s a stupid question.

I mean, are you still uncivilised poop flinging screecher-er?

Of course you are!

It was then we saw the man from the future return to his blue orb state & shoot off into nothingness. All at the meeting thought it was a great performance. We all wondered which amateur dramatics troop was responsible. We loved the special effects – both the blue orb & his holographic appearance. We couldn’t allow ourselves to publicly think otherwise. But at least I recorded it – for future posterity.

The End

“The Bomb-Cleaner” (A Poem)

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by Martin Anton Smith

My room is a messy cluttered disaster zone @ this is its homeostasis.

Being neat & tidy does not come natural to me – a main house I can be tidy –

But a personal bedroom has always been my disaster zone.

I’ve been thinking of the best way to quickly tidy up –

It is to explode a bomb in the middle of the room –

Entropically speaking this would have to work wonders.

For my room is always at maximum entropy.

I like to think of it as a model of the end state of our universe –

So disordered it can’t become any more disordered.

Physicists call this the ‘heat death of the universe’,

And contend that nothing at all can happen –

It would be like a giant timeless frozen hologram.

My ‘bomb cleans my room’ thought has made me think of an alternate Physics theory.

Or should I say a conjecture which is really just a ‘tentative theory’,

A proto theory if you will.

You see I propose that instead of frozen nothingness,

Something can happen.

But it can only move in the direction of decreasing entropy or increasing order.

i.e. I let a bomb off & it takes my dirty undies off the floor & they fly into a draw, nicely folded, clean.

The CD’s unscatter & leap back into the bookshelf.

The dust disappears & reattaches itself to my arms & as fibres on my coats.

What’s that you say egghead?

“Entropy must always increase”

Well, not if Physics laws are nestled in a hierarchy.

So for my “Bomb cleans up room theory” to work, this would be so.

The higher Physics law enabling this would be:

“You cannot have a universe where nothing happens”.

So instead of the Universe & my room Freezing – it has to do something.

It can’t get any more messy – it’s in a state of maximum disorder & entropy.

So the only thing it can do is clean itself up.

Which is why my dirty undies cleaned & re-drawered themselves.

This of course would entail us living our lives backward –

dead people would come out of graves, back to hospital & then start breathing,

grow younger & younger until you die by returning to you mother’s womb.

Perhaps this is what is already happening now.

“But that’s not how we remember things” I hear you cry!

“we remember being a child before being a teenager & an adult” I hear you utter.

This would merely entail we remember futures first & not our pasts first!

The Film of the universe is always running backwards, & our brains merely fixo chango it –

So everything looks normal.

Yes Yes Yes I hear the squirrely voices of you naysayers!

This conjecture is undoubtably true…

I say this without an ounce of overconfidence!

Now I really must leave this Royal Society lecture hall.

A spot of Bomb-Cleaning is in order.

For my room has reached Maximum Entropy & Chaos!

P.S. My other theory is I have gone totally doo-lally,

Which as a fiction writer, is actually a plus.

As I always never say:

Being backward is the only real way forward.

………..

Boom.

“Many Mansions” (A Poem)

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by Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Last Night I Had My 2nd Dream Of “Hell”.

My First Dream Of Hell Was About A Year Ago.

Let Me Summarise & Compare & Contrast The Two,

And Then I Will Analyse What It Could “Mean” – If Anything.

The First Was Not Long After I Begun To Engage In Reading The Bible,

And Engage In Self Research About Christian Theology,

As Well As The Wider History Period Around The Time Of Jesus Of Nazareth.

So, The First “Vision Of Hell” Went Like This:

I Was Lead Into A Nondescript Place – Dark, Brooding,

But Not Quite The Comic Book Version Of Hell.

If Was A Place Where People Walked, But There Was Seemingly No Chattels.

I Don’t Recall Much Other Than The Fact I Felt I was Being Shown It –

Shown It Exists As A Place, By A Benevolent Force By My Side.

This Force Was Leading Me To A Meeting -Without Talking –

I Was Just Following Obligingly.

So In Time I Saw Someone I Recognised – Someone Who Still Lives –

In The Earthly World I Still Inhabit.

He Was An Old Schoolmate – Someone Who Was Always “Too Cool”.

This Time Instead Of Ignoring Me They Said Cheerily:

“Hi Martin How Are You Going”.

They Were Nice In Hell But Mean On Earth?

Perhaps, Contrary To Popular Myth – This Is How It Works –

In Hell They Are Finally Scared Enough Into Being Nice.

He Was About 20 Years Of Age & Had His Flesh Hanging Off Him –

In Large Chunks At That.

That’s All I Remember Of My First Visit to Hell –

Note: I Was Being Temporarily Shown – Not “Committed” As Such.

Ok On To Hell Visit “No. Two”, From Just Last Night.

This One Was Different – I Think I was Being Shown My “New Digs”.

Again, The Dream Contents Seem Short & Simple:

The Force Leading Me Was to My Side –

There but Not Talking Only Leading,

But I Knew That This Was A Place, Cavernous, No Chattels & With ‘Warm’ Lighting.

It Was Like A Landlord Was Showing Me My New Lodgings –

As Best Described As “A Spartan Boarding House” –

This Judgement Of A ‘Boarding House’ – Was A Feeling, Rather Than The ‘Look’, Per Se.

It Came As The Popping Thought: “Oh This Seems Like A Boarding House” –

A Non-Explicit Hunch, You Might Say.

And Then I Was Shown What I Guess Was A Pre-existing Tenant.

In This Dream I Didn’t Recognise Him As Anyone From My Earthly Existence.

He Was Male, & Had the Look Of A Serious Burns Victim & ‘Freddy Kruger’ Sans The Long Fingernails.

It Was the Introduction Where We Say Hi & Engaged In Small Chit Chat –

Except That’s When In Real Life My Mother Knocked On the Door & I Awoke.

Ok My Brief Analysis Is this:

These Dreams Could Be A Warning That Hell Is Indeed Real –

And If You Don’t Explicitly Work To Avoid Going There –

You WILL End Up there.

What A Scary Thought.

Also, The 1st Dream Hell Seems Worse That The 2nd –

To Recap The First Was Like A Walking Half Butchered Sheep-

While the Second Was Like A Functional 4th Degree Recovered Burns Victim.

This Contrast Between the Two Made Me Think:

That This Like A Hellish Version Of The Bible Verse John 14:2

“In My Fathers House There Are Many Rooms. If It Were Not So,

Would I Have Told You That I Am Going There To Prepare A Place For You?”.

For If If Heaven Is Demarked & Graded Into Different Compartments –

Surely Hell Is Too.

Perhaps Ones Life Is Graded As A Whole, & The Score Allocates You To Your Room In The Afterlife.

You Could Be A C- Life & Just Scrape Into The ‘Barely Good’ Digs In Heaven,

Or A+ & Get To The Sublime Penthouse Suite With Endless Room Service All Paid.

Or On The Flipside You Could Fail Marginally With A D & End Up In the Best Rooms In Hell,

Barely Disfigured, only Just Uncomfortable & Only A Little Sick;

Or You Could Fail Maximally With a Zero Score,

& Perhaps Have Endless Eternal Wide Awake Flaming Lobotomy Surgery Etc.

The Most Scary Thing, All Up, I Think Is This:

This Description Seems to Sound A Lot Like the Earth As It Is Now –

But The State Between Heaven-ish-ness & Hellishness Is Unevenly Yoked –

Favouring Hell.

This The By Logical Deduction Brings Forth Another Scary Proposition

Perhaps Our Earth Life Is The Post Judgement Phase Of A Prior “Life”,

& We Are Here Serving Our Justly Imposed Sentences –

In A Very Real Intwined & Co-Mingling Heaven & Hell.

With Most Of Us On The Wrong Side Of the Ledger,

Living In Many Mansions, In Varying States Of Disrepair.

Of Course, My “Earth = A Comingling Heaven & Hell” Theory

May Be Totally Wrong BUT – If I Am Wrong,

Why Does The Countenance Of The Very Nice Look Angelic,

While The Very Mean’s look Like Those Of Demons?

Are These Not An Example Of The ‘Hidden Principalities Of The Spiritual Realm’?

Simply Re-Flowering On The Other Side Of The Canvas?

“My Bumper Sticker Reads ‘The Fuckups Will Win In The End’ ” ( A Poem Or An Essay)

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By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

There Are Many Ways To Fuck Up Your Life.

Contrary To Popular Belief – You Can Fuck Up Your Life Both IN THE SYSTEM & AS AN OUTSIDER.

Yes It Is Silly To Pass A ‘Bum In The Streets’ & Think That Rich People Can’t Be Just As Fucked Up.

Note The ‘Bum On The Streets’ Is a Term Used By Uncaring Nouveau Riche Types in The USA.

I Do Not Condone It Here By My Use Of It – I Only Use It As It Has Poetic Cache.

Now Let me Return To My Theme.

The ‘Bum On The Streets’ For Anyone That Has Dug Only A Little Under The Surface,

Has Usually Not Actually Specifically Fucked Up Their Lives Via A Singular Bad Decision.

It Has Happened Due To A Underlying Vulnerability (Say Bad Mental Health),

And A Cascading Series Of Bad Life Outcomes Meaning The Dam Of Wellbeing Breaks’.

This Is The Scary Thing About That Much Said Cliche – “It Could Happen To Anyone”.

The Scary Thing It Is Basically True & Can Actually Happen To At Least 75% Of People.

Of Course, 25% Of People That Are Daddies & Mommies Girls & Boys Are Insulated.

Although Perhaps Push Comes To Shove – Even Half Of Them Could End Up ‘Down & Out’.

So That Being Said We Can Conclude It Is Quite Easy For Almost Everyone To “Fuck Up Their Life”.

So That Being Known – Let me Talk Of The Next Higher Order Reason Why Almost Anyone Can ‘Fuck Up Their Life’.

Industrial Society, Industrial Society, Industrial Society.

It Is The Bad Fit Of The Social Structure Of Industrial Society & Our Construction As Smart Animals.

That Is The Higher Order Reason For The Ridiculous Ease Of Fucking Up One’s Life.

The Industrial Society Only Cares For Commodities & Judges Harshly Anyone Who Breaks From It.

If You Break From Being A Commodity, You Will Become Invisible to the Systems Reward System.

Without The Rewards You Cannot Sleep Or Eat Well Or Have The Required Social Feedings Of Kindly Attention.

Yes There Is An Exception – The Person That Goes Bush & Lives “Off Grid” & Just Survives.

But As Always – The Exception Proves The Rule.

So Now Let Us Imagine Before Industrialisation.

You Were Either Landed Gentry Or Higher Such As A Lord Or King Or You Were A Serf.

A Serf Tilled The Earth To Raise Crops For Society, His Family Was Afforded Accommodation & A Percentage Of What He Grew.

If He Dared To Stop the Toil – He Was Punished Thusly:

He Was Fined, He Was Put It Stocks He Was Mutilated Or Killed.

Thus If A Serf “Fucked Up Their Life” By Disobeying Authority – He Wouldn’t Exist Long In That State.

Thus We Can Say The Agrarian Serf-Lord-King Economy Was A More “Blunt & Untechnical” Version Of Industrial Society.

Of Course This Is Sensible – For Industrial Society Is The Child The Medieval Society.

The Main Difference Is In Industrial Society The “One That Fucked Up” Survives Longer, Forms A Subgroup & Is Seen More.

‘Enlightenment’ Scolars Say That Science Sprung Forth & This Unique Force Made a ‘Radical Rupture In Society”.

But I Think This Is Too Romantic – Industrial Society Was Just As As Much “More Of The Same” As “Radically Different”.

This Fact Is Best Known By Intuition More That Anything.

Most Exist As An ‘Industrial Employee’ Which Trades Labour For Money To Live – Similar In Quality To A Medieval Serf.

An Industrial Employee Cannot Just Stop Trading Labour For Money.

This Reality Is Felt Acutely By The Well Seasoned Industrail Employee – They Know They Are Stuck.

The Industrial Employee Has Two Outcomes To Keep Toiling Or Face Fucking Up Their Lives & Join The Fuckups Collective.

The Medieval Serf Has Two Outcomes To Keep Toiling Or Face Fucking Up Their Lives & Then Be Killed.

Thus, We Can Say Confidently That Where The Medieval System Culls The Industrial Society Tends To Factory Produce Them.

I Could Now Talk Much Of Pre Medieval/Agrarian Times – & Talk Of Hunter Gatherer Societies.

But To Me The Answer Is Obvious.

In Hunter Gatherer Society You Could Rebell Against ‘The System’ Which Was Essentially “Man Hunt Woman Forage & Birth”.

Like Medieval Society You Would Either Be Killed, Maybe Banished Maimed or Shamed

BUT There Was Another Option Available That Beats The Medieval Or Industrial Counterparts:

They Could Take Their Chances & Disappear Into The Night Lie Low Forever Or Even Choose To Join A New Tribe.

In Fact The Hunter & Gatherer Fuckup Who Rebels Could Do this Re-iteratively Ther Entire (If Also Shortened) Life.

Thus My Conclusion To This Philosophical Treatment On “Fucking Up Ones Life” Is As Follows:

You Could Be Easy Killed For Being A Fuckup In Medieval & Hunter Gatherer Societies.

In Industrial Society The Fuckup Is A Byproduct Of a Mechanical Technocratic Society & Kept Alive For The System’s Strategy.

The ‘Fuckup’ Survives As An Object Of Permanent Derision – A Permanent Warning To Always Obey.

A Walking Sign that Says “Don’t Do What I Did – Keep Toiling Away No Matter How Maddening It Is”.

All In All IF You Have Voluntarily or Involuntarily ‘Fucked Up Your Life”,

You’d Be Best To Live As A Hunter Gatherer Who Has Fled Into The Night, & Can Survive On The Earth’s Wares Alone,

Or Join Another Tribe That May Be Wacky Enough To Invite A Total Fuckup Into Their Open Arms.

The Beauty Of Hunter Gather Tribes, I Think, Probably Lay In Thier Socio-cultural Inhomogeneity: Subcultures Aplenty.

The Worse Place To Be A Fuckup Is In The Here & Now So Called ‘Advanced Industrial Society’.

Instead Of Being Dead Or Walking Free Into The Wild, They’ll Turn You Into A Constant Visible Symbol Of Disobedience.

Thus, Industrial Society Is Not A Welfare State At All – It Is A Surveillance Control State That Farms Fuckups For Fun.

Perhaps The Meek (Aka ‘The Fuckups’) Will Inherit The Earth & It Will Be Well & Good.

As A Final Aside, I’d Like To Admit This:

Yes, My Bumper Sticker Reads “The Fuckups Will Win In The End”

[note: I have republished this work & added a long introduction to it with extra thoughts on the issues involved. Read it on my other wordpress site here https://martinantonsmith.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/my-bumper-sticker-reads-the-fuckups-will-win-in-the-end-new-intro-for-this-blog/)