I'll take the little Asian guy

Does the Queen go to the cinema? Fat chance! She's the Queen for chrissake. And when you're the Queen you know people, which is to say you have flunkies who know people, and they arrange for whatever film it is that tickles your fancy to be delivered to your palace for a private screening. Same same for presidents, popes, and any number of the rich and powerful. If you were given to such things, you could divide the world into two groups: those who go to the cinema or otherwise wait for the DVD; and those who have private screenings. Hmm... if you could develop a bio-weapon that killed only the latter group, you'd really be on to something wouldn't you? God save the Queen though! She's lovely!


Mind you, the people who wield true power in this world, ie. those who own the Reserve Banks, could go to the cinema if they wanted to. It's not as if they'd be recognised is it? Which is the whole idea, sure enough. When people start using words like 'lamp-posts' and 'dangling from', it pays to have no one know who you are, what you look like, or where you live. Assassination is only ever for figureheads and flunkies. The rain falls in many directions, but never 'up', if you know what I mean. Otherwise if you want to view their deliberate anonymity as an acknowledgement of their own wickedness, go right ahead.

So. Even though those in the twelve families could go to the cinema unrecognised, I doubt that they would. The price of hubristic self-adoration would require that you never mix with the hoi polloi. God forbid the self-impressed viewing others as human. But still, I don't doubt that those above us would listen to music, read books, and watch movies. Certainly they would have watched The Matrix. All of those arcane references, in jokes, and messages of homage are there for them. When someone says a film 'works on so many levels' they don't know the half of it. Those in the twelve families have their own level.


Speaking of levels, I wonder if our kings of hubris saw Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle? Probably not. I suspect that they wouldn't have cared for it, what with its message that regardless of how powerful one is, there is always someone who can best you, and invariably from a direction least expected. In some ways, it's the anti-Matrix.

But never mind that, I'll bet the Rothschilds et al would have watched the Matrix and been only too chuffed to see themselves as the omniscient, omnipotent godhead with the rest of humanity deluded, powerless, and flailing about in their own filth. But that's the problem with hubris - it renders one susceptible to arrant flattery.

Whatever they tell themselves, or let themselves be told, the rulers of this world are nothing more than writ-large versions of those who worship their five senses, their stomachs, and their cocks and cunts. And as ugly as those last two words are, whatever utility they serve, they serve for those who rule also. Or to put it another way, these people shit, and their shit stinks. They're just anti-Buddhas and there's nothing special about that. In fact, it's the most obvious and prosaic choice anyone could make. And to be the greatest anti-Buddha is to render oneself the Lord of the Obvious. If the word 'sublime' is in their vocabulary it's only because they don't get it.


Regardless of The Matrix's assertion otherwise, the fact is that these lords of usury have not seen the turn of an age. They don't know what the Mayans knew. Oh alright, they've probably read up and know as much as anyone. But what's that worth exactly? Do we imagine that in any clash between the wisdom of true ancients and the usurers' self regard that the latter wouldn't trump the former? If they possess the wisdom of the Mayans in any way it's only because they stole it and beat it into some idiotic shape that served their own purposes.

The Matrix is better viewed in the context of Hollywood and the money men who funded it. Never mind the obvious bilking of cash from the gob-smacked masses - the subtext serves to flatter the powerful, and to fill the un-gob-smacked (that's us) with dismay. But both of them are worthless propositions that don't deserve our attention.

To hell with its message of the godhead's timeless omniscience and control - an age turns now and this will be a new gig for our jumped-up moneylenders. And frankly their desperation is apparent. Every day sees the lies getting ever more numerous and ever more pathetic. The number of people who get it is perpetually rising.

Clearly the families are approaching their 'crash or crash through' moment. And it's perfectly unsurprising that there are elaborately constructed elements of our culture (ahem, that would be films like The Matrix) that ignore the first half of this one-or-t'other choice. Sure enough. It stands to reason that their plans for world domination would necessarily have everyone convinced of the caper's inevitability. If we're convinced that it was always going to happen, then it probably will. God forbid that we, or even they, acknowledge that the whole thing coming a cropper is as likely as any other result. More so, if you think about it.

Okay so I'm in Les Visible territory here. Les asserts that a supernatural response is building up a head of steam and that a colossal arse-kicking is coming. He might be right. I expect that many of Les' readers don't actually believe in the supernatural. But that's only because they never thought about it. Let's just substitute the word 'supernature' for 'supernatural'. Anyone who's read James Gleick's Chaos Theory, or is otherwise familiar with it, (regardless of what kind of nihilist they are, ahem) would have to admit that with chaos theory we're in some spooky territory. It could fairly be described as the ghost in the machine.


Chaos theory's truth is that the universe is infinite. Beneath atomic structure lays infinite levels of ever decreasing 'smallness'. And above what we perceive of the universe is a flipside infinity of 'hugeness'. There is no end to this and it cannot be comprehended. Except by the Buddha, ha ha. (There! I knew I'd get him in somehow!)

This the 'above' and 'below'. And whatever terms you use to describe them it really doesn't matter. Between a god reaching down, and a butterfly making a thunderstorm, it's all the same thing - from the tiniest to the largest and back again. Who knows where things start and end? The butterfly for instance is only an approximation. It's not actually the start of anything. In a universe of infinite 'crinkliness' running in both directions, the butterfly is merely an image we can comprehend. It's just one point on the 'strange attractor'. The trail that led to the butterfly is infinitely long. Nothing started with it and clearly nothing ends there either.

And the same is true of the thunderstorm. That too is just another photo that our brains will understand. If you like, you could throw out the butterfly and instead start with the thunderstorm as the small thing that led to a far greater event of destruction or salvation. Sure enough, there's no knowing which. If you understand chaos theory you are only the tiniest step away from acknowledging Shiva as destroyer and creator. Call it whatever you like. Of view it as a concept - who cares. They're just different words to describe the same thing.


It's entirely unsurprisingly that chaos theory doesn't get a lot of press. Whilst it confirms everything told to us by the assorted priesthoods (of religion and money both), it also renders those same people as superfluous. It declares that any claims they make about possessing the truth are bullshit. The universe is infinite and unknowable. Anyone who declares that they have the ultimate answer is a liar. There can be no truth declared apart from the Buddha's bullet-proof dictum that the only certainty is change.

And below this is the undeniable fact that we, as humans, are not separate from the universe. We are one tiny part of the whole. To imagine, as anti-Buddhas do, that one is special, or above, or other, to that-which-is-not-oneself is patently false. Regardless of whatever blink-of-the-eye events have occurred before, the position is not tenable.

---

Um, okay, what? What are we meant to do with all this? Okay, maybe I can distil it into point form like some kind of powerpoint demonstration.

- Of course those who worship themselves would sell us their hype to make themselves appear invincible and to otherwise fill us with dismay.

- Hype is hype and they can stick it up their arse. There's no point listening to their lies unless it's to more closely study pathology.

- Fear is to be rejected. It serves no purpose and is otherwise a delusion.

- Microcosmic historical examples might be repeated but ultimately cannot define the macro. Indeed macros cannot truly be understood, never mind predicted.

- As ambition more nearly approaches the god-like, 'butterfly' frequency increases as does the likelihood that the outcome of crash or crash through will be crash. Not forgetting that the bigger they come the harder they fall

- Lying self-obsessed motherfuckers have nothing to offer. Between, 'the only certainty is change' and, the 'truth' of the self-serving, the latter is on a hiding to nothing.

- The Buddha, who cast off fear and desire and became one with the universe, was not unhappy. And between him, and those who'd have us live lives of fear and desire, I'll take the little Asian guy.

selflessness

There is a fellow out there in the world and I am his bête noire. Perhaps I was naive but I never had myself pegged as one to end up so designated. But it seems it's my lot. Over at smokingmirrors my least utterances reduce him to a caps-lock apoplexy. Truthfully I do not read him. I blink to see if I'm copping it yet again and then move on. But this blink is enough for me to know that I am the antichrist's cousin once removed, guilty of worshipping the false idol of selflessness. Or somesuch.

But forget that, the purpose of the exercise here and now is to clear up 'selflessness'. It's not hard because there's really nothing to it. Let's just say it's as simple as you want it to be. All a person has to do to be selfless is to do something for another that is not self-serving. Sharing food is perhaps the single most human expression of this. Otherwise one might help an old lady to a chair, a mother with her pram, or friends move house. If you expect something in return you don't get it. This is simple, simple stuff and I don't doubt that those reading here, do this kind of thing every day. In embodying this, not only will you make the world a better place but, believe it or not, you will find true happiness.

This is the simplest definition of selflessness and it is not wrong. If you like this definition and choose to lead your life in this fashion, I say, long may you live.


Or if you wish, we can take it further. Actually let's rewind. To say that performing acts of selflessness will bring happiness is somewhat simplistic. If doing things for others brought 'happiness', people like Gandhi would have been reduced to a puddle of orgasmic delirium. Somehow I doubt that this is an accurate description of him. What if I was to suggest that acts of selflessness don't bring happiness so much as they dispel unhappiness?

What unhappiness is that? It is that universal unhappiness that things are other than we would wish them. Buddha called it 'dukkha', which is to say suffering, which is to say desire. No human is free of this desire that they might feel better, look better, be more successful, be more famous, have more stuff, blah blah blah, ad infinitum. This desire is all in your head sure enough. In a discussion of selflessness, which is what we're having, it is that which defines you. It is the self, the sense of 'me'. Those who embrace desire embrace the self and are sensibly called 'selfish'. Those who let go of desire let go of the self and are thus called selfless. These are the people who share what they have, who help the old lady, the mother, the friends, or like Gandhi, devote their lives to freeing a people. Even if they don't mentally articulate it, this is how it works.

Believe it or not, this diminishment of unhappiness is readily apparent whenever you meet the selfless who devote their lives to others. You'll notice not that they're madly happy, but that they possess a calmness, a placidity. What you will see in their face is the absence of unhappiness, of desire, of the self. These are all the same thing.

This is a definition of selflessness taken one small step further. But it's actually no different to the first one. But whatever, if this is how you define your selflessness it's all good. Hats off to you.


Or we can go further, and take that final step to the metaphysical. If you're with me so far, it seems that who we are - the self / sense of desire - is actually a discussion of how we relate to the world (which is to say that which is not us). Is the world there for us? Or are we there for it? Do we make ourselves greater by taking from those not us? Or do we lessen ourselves and give to those not us? The answer is obvious and not the final step here. The final step is to wonder how far the diminishment of the self can go and what that means.

Can one shed all desire? What happens to the self? Does it disappear? Does a person who does this disappear? Are they no more? Ayah! Scary stuff. Who wouldn't fear this? Who would wish to cease to exist?

Funnily enough, no such thing happens. In fact it's the precise opposite. Those who take from others do not become greater. They actually harden into black holes of negativity. They become a dense speck of hatefulness. Those who give of themselves expand. It is they who actually become greater. They radiate love. Where this path leads to is that old chestnut of becoming 'one with the universe'. This is what Buddha became. He cast off desire, fear, and all delusion of the self. He ceased to differentiate between himself and that which was not him. And anyone can achieve what he achieved. Anyone can become Buddha.


If you think that this last bit is bullshit, that's fine with me. Take the second meaning instead. Or the first. It doesn't really matter. It's certainly not worth having an argument about. The important thing is that there is nothing to fear from selflessness. In whatever way you view it, it cannot lead you astray. None of these definitions have anything in them to cause unhappiness, ill will, or any form of negativity.