The 23 Apples of Eris

from the Black Iron Prison

This morning I could feel the bars around me when I woke up, from the cool gray sky dribbling onto the ground through the shades as my alarm was going off to the dully lit streets as they passed by the windows of the bus to the elevator that’s in the building where I work. From one box to another to another to another to another.

At least some have windows …

But what use is a view when it’s through bars? What use is the sight of the sun on the leaves when it’s through a pane of glass that feels like one long bar itself? When you’re trapped in one cell after another, what does the scenery really matter? When you’re trapped in a cell you bring with you, does it matter where you are?

Maybe it’s better if you can’t SEE the bars …

That’s what I think some mornings when the bars are so clear around me. When every wall turns into bars keeping me closed in, keeping my thoughts in line inside the approved limits of the cell I’m in. That’s what I think during the times when I can see the cage everyone is bringing with them, surrounding them as they go off to work, go shopping, go to the bar for a bite and a drink. When I can SEE the bars, SEE the cages enclosing everyone (even me), SEE the baggage people carry around with them and that colors how they see the rest of us, I wonder …

Can anyone ELSE see the bars? Or is it just me?

Or am I even seeing the bars at all? Are the bars REALLY there, or is it just because it’s a rainy day and those always get me a little down? If it’s all in my head, is it all JUST in my head or can other people see it too? If other people CAN see it, have they thought about getting out of the cage, opening the bars? Or are they so conditioned that they think the bars are SUPPOSED to be there?

Did we ever see the bars as they were being put around us?

When we were growing up, learning from our friends, the adults that taught us (intentionally and unintentionally), and anything and everything else, did we put the bars up ourselves? Did they, did WE give us the bars to weld in place? Did they know it was happening? Did they WANT to know? Did WE want to know? Or did we just put the bars up because we saw them around the people we were learning from and just wanted to fit in, to get along? Or were we born in the cell and didn’t know any better until it was too late?

Seems like the bars were always around me, and I never even thought they were keeping me in.

After all, the bars seem like they’ve always been there, the cool iron taking on a comforting familiarity after enough time. Sometimes I had a bigger cell where the bars felt far, far away, other times I needed my cell small and tight to keep things OUT as much as the bars were keeping me IN. At least I’ve been able to change the cell once in a while, right?

Right?

from the Black Iron Prison

Haven’t you had enough yet? Are you getting sick of it all? You should be. Sickness is your way of life. Take this pill, do this job, but we wont give you enough time to cook, so eat this pre-made meal.

Hey, it may kill you…eventually, but think of the poor starving children in Ethiopia. Sure, your apathy over politics helped contribute to the mess, but think of them! Care for this, eat that, watch this, take your crap, drink your beer and stay smiling. We tell you where to go and what to do.

Tired of being bought and sold like cattle? Are you sheep or goat? Do you want to be led by the nose or do you want to headbutt the herders, then perhaps run amok the flock for a while, scaring the bejeezus out of them?

There’s too much of everything nowadays, everything that in a special way is nothing. Keeping up with the neighbors and the fashions while trying to keep up with the bills while having your attention distracted by vacuous twits on the idiot box. It drains you to the point that caring becomes too much of a hassle and the depressives of society become an attractive choice to make.

And that’s exactly how We want it! Tired little sheep kept running by the faithful hounds all day long until they are too tired and submit, they break. Who are We? Nowadays, practically everyone…your boss, your leaders, the media at large, the people responsible for American Idol/X-Factor/fill-in-pointless waste of music reality-TV program here….a huge faceless confederacy constantly trying to sway you this way and that, turn you into a follower of anything.

But you can be free. You can sign your very own Declaration of Independence today, turn the tables on this alliance of idiot leaders who would take you for all you have! How? By ignoring us and taking your own road. Yes, it’s that simple. What has paying them attention ever done, other than distract and depress you? Until you do that, you cannot own yourself, despite having every material need in the world fulfilled. You can live the safe, numbing ‘life’ of a servant or you can live it how it was meant to be, exciting and terrifying but ultimately free.

an excerpt from the Black Iron Prison…  this article written by Rip City Hustle

The face of the revolution?

Can you feel it coming? Do you smell a change upon the wind? NO.

You DON’T.

You CAN’T.

you’ve deluded yourself with dreams of a grand re-awakening, a massive paradigm shift of the collective social conscience. You’ve convinced yourself that someone (maybe even you) will come along and cast down the Powers That Be™ that are in control of the MACHINE™.

You’re WRONG.

There are no Powers That Be™. The MACHINE™ deposed them long ago, or perhaps they just became obsolete, victims of their own efficiency. You see, long ago the MACHINE™ became far too large to be overseen by a conspiracy, or even by a network of several different conspiracies. The MACHINE™ is no longer under the control of mankind, rather it has become an entity unto itself. A blind, uncaring juggernaut of assimilation and mediocrity. The MACHINE™ feeds off of the static nature of humanity. Any real agents of change are perceived as dangerous mutations, to be neutralized and disposed of as quickly as possible. Yes, that includes you. And yes, that also includes me.

Why do you think I constantly exhort YOU to become an agent of change? I’ve got my own schemes and machinations to that end, but I want to see the manner in which the MACHINE™ deals with you before I finalize MY game plan. You see, to be effective as a catalyst, one has to confront the problem of scale. You CAN NOT bring the MACHINE™ down. You can’t even slow it down. What you can do is very slowly and unobtrusively begin to rearrange the basic components. We will refer to these as “widgets” and “sprockets”. If widget A and sprocket B combine to exert societal influence C on the stinking morass known collectively as “humanity”, then it stands to reason that the MACHINE™ can be reprogrammed at a very basic level and in very small increments. You waste your time dreaming of how to effect such a change on a global, national, or regional scale (the impossibility of which, I might add, keeps you in your perpetual state of blissful apathy), dreaming of assembling a group of like-minded fellows who will march with you to the very gates of the ivory tower whereupon those who have misled and exploited you will be cast down upon the parapets.

Well guess what?

YOU ARE the one who has misled and exploited you. You have overlooked the most obvious solution, the most effective solution, the only possible solution.

Kill yourself, fuck the body.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

But seriously, this is what I have come to believe is the true spirit of the oft-misused phrase “we must stick apart”: we cannot effect a large scale change, and if we make a serious attempt we WILL be neutralized. Instead, each and every one of us should make a conscious effort to effect a small reprogramming of the MACHINE™ in a manner that affects us and our immediate surroundings. Keep the mutation small, and give it a chance to become effectively contagious.

If we all effect a change on our own paradigm (this DOES require some effort, being a bliss-ninny doesn’t count), there WILL be an eventual overlap, at which point the large scale change which we have hoped to effect all along will be impossible to stop.

(insert witty closing tagline here)