From: Celinec-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 22:21:38 -0400
Subject: Metapsychological premise #2


We had not reached the age of ambition, and the greedy scramble
for honors and positions caused us to stay away from all possible
spheres of activity. The only refuge left us was the poet's ivory
tower, which we climbed, ever higher, to isolate ourselves from
the mob.

-- Gerard de Nerval


Metapsychological Premise #2 (a first and very rough draft) 

In search of new beliefs about death, murder and violence
********************************************************
All this that I am trying to explain appeared to me as a vision, 
when I was looking at the delicate and beautiful skeleton of a
woman. It came to me as a naked insight, startling, simple,
direct, but it left in my conscious memory only the ghost of
itself, a wavy outline with an engulfing void in its center.

For those of you who don't believe in dreams I would advise you
to read no further, for you will find all this ridiculous and
annoying. For those of you who know of things more forceful than
an imagination, or who see this life pop out of a void. Leave
now, for your logic will surely drag the rest of us downwards.
For those of you who don't personally inwardly create a world,
who believe in the fury of the mob rather than in the strength of
the one lone thought. This writing was not meant for you.

But for those of you that wish to fly, not in an airplane, but on
wings that grow from the love in your heart, and the burn in your
sexual organs, well, come along now. We have far to go.

Like everything that stands, we have invented murder, violence
and death. 

Murder, violence and death are our children, unwanted and
misunderstood as they may be. They run around dirty and snot
nosed like orphans, because no one wants to claim them.

Sure. It is only the criminals, the lunatics, the poor locked
down in the joint types and of course our governments who commit
these so-called crimes. 

I know. My tax dollars are right now going to kill some people I
don't even know half way across the world. And a father, here in
my own city, has plunged a screwdriver to the handle into the
heart of his six-year-old son.

I am a murderer. As long as I am alive and kicking and living in
this world where death is feared and murder is outlawed and
violence is abhorred and life that is as drab as a commercial
venture is called living.

What we really need to do is to murder the metaphysical thoughts
that have put us in this mess.

Hear me:

Until there is no man that fears death there will be murder.

Until there is no man who thinks that to harm the body is
punishment there will be violence.

So we need to reverse our thinking. To shed our fear of death. To
stop seeing murder as the worse punishment we can bestow on
another.  We need to invent new myths. What does it matter if
they are exactly so? It is all recreation anyhow. So let's invent
myths that work..

Simply, we say that we "take" a life, but afterwards we have
nothing in our hands. We say that we "lose" our life, but if we
have really lived, well, then, we have lost nothing. We say that
to murder another is the most awful heinous crime to commit and
yet we commit it incessantly. We are looking at all this wrong.
With our metaphysical warts. 

So what if we stopped looking at it this way. Would the world go
awry, would our humanness fade if we said, "well, we're not going
to punish murder and violence anymore and we're not going to use
these weapons as punishment and we don't think murdering is so
terrible. Knock the wind out of these ideas, I say. Our world is
already awry, our humanness is on the cutting board. It is time
for hard measures.  

We need to stop defending and start rethinking. For all of
civilization we have lived with these problems, bedded with these
fears. Is no one else tired of sleeping with these old hags?

I see a world where only if you truly love someone would you dare
to murder them.

Where violent acts are performed like sexual acts, from one
partner to the other.

Where we are not afraid of each other and our actions. Where no
one is labeled a lunatic or a criminal or a beast.

Where murder is an art form, not a power play, or an act of
revenge.

But before we can get to this point we have to get through it. It
is like a monster in the dark. The more we hide from it the more
fearsome it becomes. But when we stand up bravely, when we
resolve to look right at the demon in the face, to recognize it,
to greet it, to embrace it, to shine a light in its face, well
then we have the power to turn it into air.

Celine