Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A Muse

In my understanding of the term "muse" it means one who inspires the creative power of another, one who lights a spark, or dumps gasoline on an existing fire. We all should be so lucky to have a muse at the tender impressionable age of 14. For those of you who were not so lucky please continue to enjoy the comforts of your SUV, your incontrovertible religious texts, and your exclusionary political systems. For those lucky few of us who were effectively subverted your suburban life is a comedic backdrop against which the killing and dying of the real world unfolds.

When I was 14 or 15 my muse gave me a story to read. A story of a dystopian future in which the need for mediocrity surpassed the need for genius. In this story the highly intelligent were forced to don a device which created a sharp, painful buzzing sound in their advanced minds every 30 minutes so that whatever train of thought they were having was destroyed, reset to zero, reset to the status quo.

Today those of us in the advanced intellect class can only dream of 30 minute intervals of uninterrupted thought. Without the conscious avoidance of TV, radio, billboards, and internet ads and distractions one is lucky to have 5 or even 1 minute of free thought.

Thanks only to the muse are we conscious of the spin which is put on our reality everyday. 14 year old children defending their mothers and younger siblings against foreign invaders are classified as terrorists while adults dropping bombs on children are revered as models of bravery and uprightness. Sickening and laughable international political games murder people everyday, the hungry die, the sick waste away and the empires create legal documents to legitimate their slaughter and destruction.

I am at war with you, police, militaries, governments of every shape and form consider me your enemy. History is moving beyond the pathological collective to the free human individual. When every individual rises up, throws off the chains which force us to work for slave wages, live without adequate medical care, food, shelter and art the power of bullets and prisons and armies will be as a grain of sand thrashing about in a solar storm.

The muse for the child is like Morpheus. She frees minds. One free mind. Is there any way to estimate the value of one free mind? One free mind. What is the value of Spartacus' uprising, Hannibal's strategy, Lennon's music?

For those of you in the business of freeing minds take heart in the futility of your struggle. Maybe one in a thousand, or in ten thousand will make it but these are the Sergei Brins and the David Brins, Shakespeare and Chopin, Guy Faux and Steve Biko, Rosa Parks and Gandhi.

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