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It is upside-down and distorted, yet gives an impression of depth and dimension.

It is a lie bought and sold again and again and again, increasing in cost with each successive sale yet paradoxically, proportionately decreasing in value.

At its best it is magical, alluring, captivating – a siren's song.

At its worst it is disturbing, ominous, sinister – a malevolent propriety.

It is a comfortable excuse; it appeals to my sense of order and it makes me feel less ignorant, yet it leads me astray.

It is an enterprising depiction of what is (simultaneously) there and not there; an invention, an illusion, a myth.

It is full of light and dark and hope and trust and imagination and danger and vulnerability.

It is an urgency incidental to itself, and a warning humbled and hesitant. We have chosen to follow the urgency; the warning goes unheeded.

It is a house of cards built inside a cast iron vault.

It is (only a little) closer to reality at 90 degrees and then (a bit more) at 180 degrees.

When you look beneath it – there is nothing there.

When you reach underneath – it slips through your fingers, cold and wet; unctuous, unfathomable.

It is a tool used to substantiate,  justify and maintain.

It is a covering, a garment used to conceal, amuse and distract – one size fits all.

It facilitates, expedites, promotes, simplifies, enables.

It is absurdity masquerading as wisdom. It is impulse pretending virtue. It is artifice playacting sincerity. It is death posing as potential.

It is a mirrored membrane reflecting a misremembered past as present as future.

It is an imperious suggestion of misinformed righteousness.

It is a preference for answers over questions, constraint over consideration, presumption over doubt, loud over obvious.

It is decisive, judgmental, unflinching, unforgiving.

It is a landscape, a pointillist perspective, a watercolor, a canvas stretched, a kaleidoscopic diffusion of promiscuous observation.

It is blissful reconciliation.

I came across this suggestion in the book “Blood Memory” written by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns: “We're supposed to make decisions that go seven generations beyond...” -Marcia Pablo, Native American.

I came across this statement in the work of fiction “The Son” written by Phillip Meyer: “…it was all pointless, we might as well have never crawled from the swamps, we were no more able to understand our own ignorance than a fish, staring up from a pool, can fathom its own.”

I said the following last week: “How do you tell someone who makes more money than you, is more powerful than you, and who believes they are smarter than you, that they are stupid; or even just ignorant.”

They don’t want to hear it; any of it. It is obvious that “they” are Wealth and Power. It is less obvious that “they” also includes comfort, and that compliance is often confused with comfort, and I think we do this purposely to justify our inaction and to feel better about our collective lack of progress. My momentary, confused comfort is not going to help my great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. And because I am not wealthy, it is unlikely I will even be of much help to my grandchildren. And if the objective is really seven generations beyond, it is also unlikely that the wealthy will be of much help to their direct descendants seven generations beyond, much less mine. And the goal is not (should not be) limited to direct descendants, but should convey to all future generations. Yet for our momentary, confused purposes, we are wealthy, we are powerful, we are comfortable, we are compliant.

We could choose to live creatively, through the eyes of an artist; but instead we choose to live unflinchingly, through the eyes of a banker.

In the 2018 film “At Eternity’s Gate” Willem DaFoe as Vincent van Gogh said, “…a grain of madness is the best of art.”

We live in a Factual Fiction, built on false and questionable assertions, guided by intentional fiction, and ruled by a vocal majority. We should (and I believe we could) live in the pursuit of Beauty-Truth-Wisdom-Justice, built on substantiated, tangible fact, guided by expert opinion, and ruled by an actual majority. But we like Factual Fiction. It gives one something to live for, a sense of control, purpose, meaning, something to talk about. We don’t like the pursuit of Beauty-Truth-Wisdom-Justice not only because its Ideal is unattainable, but mostly because its pursuit is discouraged, unrewarded, and often punished.

A Factual Fiction from a false or questionable premise may come from the following (often entangled, mixed, melded for strength and support):

• Uninformed Conjecture.
• Hearsay.
• Anecdotal Evidence.
• Political Rhetoric.
• Fear.
• Belief.
• Doctrine.
• Tradition.
• Entitled Privilege.

As a human individual I am compelled to create a number of factual fictions to engage with others and to function in my day-to-day existence. In this process though, I should also recognize that these fictions are necessities residing outside of my essence that strives for Beauty-Truth-Wisdom-Justice. But as a capitalist culture, as a country, we have been forced to internalize Factual Fiction thus blotting out / smothering our essential reality. And we don’t appear to understand that by doing so we have lost our ability to collectively improve, make things better, do Good.

As a capitalist culture, as a country, we have replaced essence with substance; we have turned ourselves so much outside-in we can no longer feel what matters.

In a Factual Fiction unfounded judgements are required to justify its intrinsic injustice. This is relevant in two ways:

1. choosing one Factual Fiction over another, and
2. avoiding / ignoring substantiated, tangible fact and expert opinion.

Both relevancies allow one to remain loyal to their chosen Factual Fiction and to perpetuate the divisiveness necessary to maintain the underlying Intentional Fiction, widen gaps, and strengthen the vocal majority.

How do you tell someone who makes more money than you, is more powerful than you, and who believes they are smarter than you, that they are stupid; or even just ignorant. When I first wrote the preceding sentence I thought I would have to temper it. But no. Collectively we are stupid and individually too many of us have allowed this collective stupidity to turn us outside-in; to choose to live this really, really, really, really stupid Factual Fiction that is our capitalist culture – our country.

This week, in a discussion about money, someone said to me , “I don’t understand your mindset.” Perhaps that is because my thoughts don’t stem from the false premises and false promises of a capitalist culture.

And now this week I am once again reading about heedless, needless gun violence that this time erupted in my home state. I am not proud to be a Missourian. The lack of any effort by the state of Missouri, by the United States of America, to curb the proliferation of such easily attainable weapons is a head-shaking, heartbreaking stupidity; a Factual Fiction substantiated and strengthened by a capitalist culture. Once again there will be an uproar, political rhetoric, fear countered by tradition, and once again nothing will happen. We will remain mired in our collective stupidity.

Paragraphs above feel a bit disjointed this week, but then so do I.

Silence...