The Quiet Non-Life

The biggest conspiracy in the world
is also the quietest-how indifferent we are
to each other and all the life that supports us.

Practice Makes Imperfect

When Quentin Crisp prepared to export himself
to America for the rest of his natural life in 1981,
he was asked 'Are you a practising homosexual'.
With his usual gift for being quotable and evasive
he replied, 'I didn't need the practice, I was perfect'.
One of the bigger regrets of my life
is that in my imperfection I practised too much,
and nearly everything that I practised took me
further and further away from my perfection.

Choose Your Poison Carefully

Three arguments against the decriminalisation
of the possession of cannabis:-

1-Manufacturers will stamp their culture on something
that has a two generation old business model that works
in it's own terms of supply and demand. If supplier and user
pay no tax because they trade in contraband it should be seen
as part of the historic conservatism of a low tax economy,
which does not need tax law because it taxes very little.

Do we want cannabis cigarettes manufactured en masse
when that will increase the prospect of further corporate tax law
/corporate tax avoidance? I would rather lawyers and accountants
and the various governments departments who pay themselves well
to regulate everything did less, or found more urgent jobs to do.

2-Before the government permitted the corporatisation
of the image of cannabis, it would be medicalised for the few,
rendered safe for prescription, and controlled for the many
by it remaining pathologised. The public will always seek
the chemical contraband of their choice to combat the stress
of trying to be sociable. The problem of self medication,
and transgressive values, like alcohol itself, would remain.

3-Even if cannabis were permitted in liminal social spaces,
lightly policed for self medication, it will still be weighed down
by the instruction that nearly all medicine is supplied with
which every adult I know ignores, 'Do Not Take With Alcohol'.
I would rather my poison were tax free and outside the law
than misruled by government for the benefit of corporations.

Cannabis use among 15-64 yr olds by country

Where Do They Think From?

For many years I practiced being a secretive homosexual.
I know some who still practice
-though they do it more openly than did in my past.
What finally made me less active in my pursuit
was realising the lack of comensality of men
who would share their bodies and their bits,
but would withhold the gift of themselves.
All whilst imposing fantasies on others
-often with each partner unaware that mutual role play
was as far as as the exchange went.
But if they were asked instead to share a meal
and have a chat they would not give it the time,
and refuse for fear of how they felt divided
 and discomfort for this finally being revealed.  

Careers Advice

The best future anyone can have
is to plan from as early in life as you can to be a nobody
-rather then seek the self regard of making a platform
of how you esteem yourself.
For all their anonymity nobodies
have an intact voice -all the more intact
for them knowing most clearly that theirs
is a voice among many which is reduced
by how our recognition of each other is so limited.

Committees

are definitely an unnatural form of human life,
communities with no community in them.

An Oxymoron Too Far

From Oliver Cromwell to Al Shabaab
and the U.S. military abroad on secret missions
for renditions of everyone they believe did them harm,
the one thing that unites them that I refuse to understand
is that mix of pietism and violence, refined by advanced military
technology, which always puts enmity above integrity.