Henry David Thoreau On Sauntering
Dear Mary
Thanks for your email.
I came across the word flaneur recently, but was left with a more pejorative sense of
idling.
Of course, we gringos are so agenda-and-clock-driven -- and, inter-relatedly,
"always on the go" -- that most people who think and write in English tend to look
despreciativamente at anyone who is not always "on task.''
24/7.
You may enjoy the following post, started a decade ago, but recently expanded.
The Solution To Just About Everything: Working Less
Pax et amor
Alan
PS There is an entire other essay to be written about the extent to which Americans
are obsessed with work/travail - to the point of giving up the relatively few vacation
days they have... (less than half the vacation days enjoyed by west Europeans). We
have been conditioned (in part through lifeless public education, to believe that all
you really need to do is "show up," "sit still," "be docile" and apply yourself to
repetitive, soul-sucking tasks. If you just "keep you nose to the grindstone," you'll be
rewarded with The Golden Years of Retirement, where you can do what you've
always done: sit around, push buttons and wait for "life to begin." The invisible
propellant of this mind-colonizing milieu is unregulated Cowboy Capitalism which
over the last 150 years (pretty much starting with "The Gay Nineties") has
constellated a kind of slow-motion "Stockholm Syndrome," transforming citizens into
"consumer units." Through this century-and-a-half of Pavlovian "massage," the
Capitalist Piggies were able to infuse the (invisible) heresy that true citizenship
required the marginalization of communitarianism and its fraternal twin, the Joy of
creativity. In its place "The Ungodly Rich" left behind a bottomless Hole where they
had assiduously extirpated Joy. And simultaneously, we consumer units were
re-conditioned to believe that we can fill the Hole (where Joy once resided) with
gadgets, baubles and UPC-coded consumer-pleasures, a Sisyphean task, questing
after the impossible assemblage of purchasable pleasures would eventually fill The
Hole. And not only that... Capitalist Mammon would fill The Hole to overflowing!
At last, total satisfaction... accompanied by totalitarian control of the Cowboy
Capitalist system (and its high-end Capitalist functionaries) who pull the strings of
government, not to mention the strings that tug at us whenever we're in sight of a
cash register.
Capitalism: A 2023 Compendium Of Best "Pax-Barbaria" Posts
George Carlin (who, BTW, praised his grammar school nuns) summarized it well:
"Americans are fucked. They've been bought off. And they come real cheap: a few million dirt bikes, camcorders, microwaves, cordless phones, digital watches, answering machines, jet skis and sneakers with lights in 'em. You say you want a few items back from the Bill of Rights? Just promise the doofuses new gizmos." George Carlin
"Shopping and buying - and getting and having - comprise the Great American Addiction. No one is immune. When the underclass riots in this country, they don't kill policemen and politicians, they steal merchandise. How embarrassing." George Carlin
"There is just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country. Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit? Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you, your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to be just fine— The official national bullshit story. I call it the American okie doke. Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they're pounded into our heads from the time we're children. That's what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that, and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything their parents tell them. And as a result, they never learn to question things. Nobody questions things in this country anymore. Nobody questions it—everybody is too fat and happy. Everybody's got a cell phone that'll make pancakes and rub their balls now— Way too fucking prosperous for our own good. Way too fucking prosperous, Americans have been bought off and silenced by toys and gizmos. And no one learns to question things."
George Carlin
"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we...kill those people. Ha ha ha. 'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings, and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defence each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, for ever, in peace."
George Carlin
George Carlin
"We Like War"
Video
Favorite George Carlin Shticks
:fill(FFCC00,1)/carlin-stupid-average-person-58b8d8f53df78c353c2339c2.jpg)
"You Have NO Choice," A New Frame For George Carlin's Classic Shtick
"There is just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country. Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit? Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you, your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to be just fine— The official national bullshit story. I call it the American okie doke. Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they're pounded into our heads from the time we're children. That's what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that, and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything their parents tell them. And as a result, they never learn to question things. Nobody questions things in this country anymore. Nobody questions it—everybody is too fat and happy. Everybody's got a cell phone that'll make pancakes and rub their balls now— Way too fucking prosperous for our own good. Way too fucking prosperous, Americans have been bought off and silenced by toys and gizmos. And no one learns to question things."George Carlin:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/carlin-on-conservatives-58b8d9763df78c353c233ec6.jpg)
"Americans are fucked. They've been bought off. And they come real cheap: a few million dirt bikes, camcorders, microwaves, cordless phones, digital watches, answering machines, jet skis and sneakers with lights in 'em. You say you want a few items back from the Bill of Rights? Just promise the doofuses new gizmos." George Carlin
"Shopping and buying - and getting and having - comprise the Great American Addiction. No one is immune. When the underclass riots in this country, they don't kill policemen and politicians, they steal merchandise. How embarrassing." George Carlin
"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we...kill those people. Ha ha ha. 'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings, and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, for ever, in peace."
George Carlin
"We Like War"
"You Have NO Choice," A New Frame For George Carlin's Classic Shtick
"There is just enough bullshit to hold things together in this country. Bullshit is the glue, that binds us as a nation. Where would we be without our safe, familiar, American bullshit? Land of the free, home of the brave, the American dream, all men are equal, justice is blind, the press is free, your vote counts, business is honest, the good guys win, the police are on your side, god is watching you, your standard of living will never decline… and everything is going to be just fine— The official national bullshit story. I call it the American okie doke. Every one, every one of those items is provably untrue at one level or another, but we believe them because they're pounded into our heads from the time we're children. That's what they do with that kind of thing—pound it into the heads of kids, ‘cause they know the children are much too young to be able to muster an intellectual defense against a sophisticated idea like that, and they know that up to a certain age children believe everything their parents tell them. And as a result, they never learn to question things. Nobody questions things in this country anymore. Nobody questions it—everybody is too fat and happy. Everybody's got a cell phone that'll make pancakes and rub their balls now— Way too fucking prosperous for our own good. Way too fucking prosperous, Americans have been bought off and silenced by toys and gizmos. And no one learns to question things."
George Carlin
"Americans are fucked. They've been bought off. And they come real cheap: a few million dirt bikes, camcorders, microwaves, cordless phones, digital watches, answering machines, jet skis and sneakers with lights in 'em. You say you want a few items back from the Bill of Rights? Just promise the doofuses new gizmos." George Carlin
"Shopping and buying - and getting and having - comprise the Great American Addiction. No one is immune. When the underclass riots in this country, they don't kill policemen and politicians, they steal merchandise. How embarrassing." George Carlin
"The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly coloured, and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say 'Hey! Don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we...kill those people. Ha ha ha. 'Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride. SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn't matter because: it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings, and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what you can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defense each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, for ever, in peace."
George Carlin
"We Like War"
Favorite George Carlin Shticks
"The American Dream"Video(Foul-mouthed but brilliant.)
"The American Dream"
Video
(Foul-mouthed but brilliant.)
George CarlinWikiquote
George CarlinWikiquote
George Carlin
Wikipedia
Capitalism Is America's Invisible Propellant Of Moral Degradation
On Thu, Nov 16, 2023 at 8:39 AM Mary Wilbur <mariawilmas33@gmail.com> wrote:
Alan, have you ever seen the French word, “flaneur? It evokes the sense of the art of idle walking, sauntering, wandering which allows for inhabiting the bodies and minds of others as one escapes from the self. Last year there was an article about it, probably in the BBC travel section, though I can’t be certain that’s where I read it. Paris is the perfect city for the urban rambler though Venice is equally ideal…..Love, Mary
No comments:
Post a Comment