Concordia Discors - inharmonious harmony: harmony of discordant elements
". . . But to stand in the midst of this rerum concordia discors and of this whole marvelous uncertainty and rich ambiguity of existence…" - Nietzsche, Gay Science.
So one day the frogs contrived to capture the lark. And
upon so doing, they stuffed it and put it in their newly built
civic (admission-free) museum ... in a place of honor.."
—page 123, from Theodore Roszak's "The Making of a Counterculture" -
*
Herein (further below) top talk to preface/present an excerpt at the end of Chapter Three from Theodore Roszak's impactful book which still seems more than a pertinent read though it was published in 1968.
I read it as a freshman in college in 1970, not an assigned book, mind, but one I bought from the shopping mall bookstore...and devoured it. Turned a WHEEL in me that I had only intuited in my extremely youthful and very repressed (secret) sturm und drang. Roszak and other similar authors lead me out, happily but with some dis-ease, of conservative Christianity (come by honestly as it is (still and ever shall be so long as Maya allows, a donut sugar glaze over everything the the no there that is very much there. Cypherous, cavernous, concavities of insistent "god on our side" delusions with soul- and, too often, given its brief history of existence in time, life- killing endlessly. Any doubts as to humans' being animals are easily dispelled so compelled to kill:
Ernest Becker: "Sensitive souls have reacted with shock to the elemental drama of life on this planet...this bone-crushing, bone-drinking drama in all its elementality and necessity. Life cannot go on without the mutual devouring of organisms. If at the end of each person's life he were to be presented with the living spectacle of all that he had organismically incorporated in order to stay alive, he might well feel horrified by the living energy he had ingested. The horizon of a gourmet, or even the average person, would be taken up with hundreds of chickens, flocks of lambs and sheep, a small herd of steers, sties full of pigs, and rivers of fish. The din alone would be deafening. To paraphrase Elias Canetti, each organism raises its head over a field of corpses, smiles into the sun, and declares life good." — Ernest Becker, Escape From Evil, pg.2
Of course, one real "bite" of the aforementioned Southern USA "donut" and all that "sweet Jeezzass-ness" "sugar," rather, saccharine, dunes in one's lap and all around.
When region becomes, or is, chronic. as an anthro-geo-illness then the mythos is not only Exile (which, of course, I did, self-exile, already so within, cuz I was born into it, but (for that's for another assay) birth indeed is exile from nothing to frothing and hysterically driven spinal cord-al walkabouts, talk about it, then, donut or not, new turf with other coo coo plots derived from ingested terra-regions turned to germinations, and the human (rumored to be an advance) evolution game is
ON. OFF. ON. OFF - rather, humans, a species (remember - we ARE a species of animal lest we are neocortex- tranced into "we are fancier than all our , nails, flesh and hair, oh, and shit, frankly insisting /reminding us - ARF! ARF!).
We're collectively OFFING those whom we (personally/collectively) deem not to be ON, and whom (royal/anal) we deem unworthy of, nor good enough for ______ but, rather, are too onerous to companion or mingle with our "Holy" DNA strand, SO, us "supreme" plague-landers, we (they - I never do this) seize, hard-press, spill lives in (we/I believe to be to increase their/our own, actually sowing their/our/my own brand of "fragile contentment," and so goes - WE goes - the Anthropo(ob)cene Era (aka ERROR) which, of humans, for humans, shall be the last sustainable, then terminal, period of anthrcpophagy, from simian animal to Hannibal (los dos - the one of older history, and the "other" in the film on and off the screen and into all our lap-ses (see DJT), to Uroboric hominid heads and brains up our/their own arses Irony is, we can sing and think singing is being the thing sung (I must beg to differ with Sufis - with Sufis and other mystics I do quibble but —
"What a piece of work is man," sez The Bard. Ahem. Indeed.
In deeds and movements how excess and flammable,
in-apprehension how like a sod...the harridan of animals"
this my pessimistic reassessment/rewriting of "The Bard" and lyrics of/from the musical Hair:
. . .
I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air—look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
...
How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?
Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!
. . .
How dare they try to end this beauty."
—What a Piece of Work is Man -from the musical "Hair":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fstxNFdQWZQ&t=71s*
*
Now. To the Roszak excerpt:
Chapter III
THE DIALECTICS OF LIBERATION: HERBERT MARCUSE AND NORMAN BROWN
THE SKYLARK AND THE FROGS [page 122]
A Postscript to Herbert Marcuse’s Philosophical Inquiry into Freud, Freely Adapted from the Fable by Chuang-tzu
There was once a society of frogs that lived at the bottom
of a deep, dark well, from which nothing whatsoever could
be seen of the world outside. They were ruled over by a great
Boss Frog, a fearful bully who claimed, on rather dubious
grounds, to own the well and all that creeped or crawled
therein. The Boss Frog never did a lick of work to feed or
keep himself, but lived off the labors of the several bottom-
dog frogs with whom he shared the well. They, wretched
creatures! spent all the hours of their lightless days and sl
good many more of their lightless nights drudging about in
the damp and slime to find the tiny grubs and mites on which
the Boss Frog fattened.
Now, occasionally an eccentric skylark would flutter down
into the well (for God only knows what reason) and would
sing to the frogs of all the marvelous things it had seen in
its joumeyings in the great world outside: of the sun and the
moon and the stars, of the sky-climbing mountains and fruit-
ful valleys and the vast stormy seas, and of what it was like
to adventure the boundless space above them.
Whenever the skylark came visiting, the Boss Frog would
instruct the bottom-dog frogs to attend closely to all the bird
had to tell. "For he is telling you,” the Boss Frog would ex-
plain, "of the happy land whither all good frogs go for their
reward when they finish this life of trials.” Secretly, how-
ever, the Boss Frog (who was half deaf anyway and never
very sure of what the lark was saying) thought this strange
bird was quite mad.
Perhaps the bottom-dog frogs had once been deceived by
what the Boss Frog told them. But with time they had grown
cynical about such fairy tales as skylarks had to tell, and had
reached the conclusion also that the lark was more than a
little mad. Moreover, they had been convinced by certain
free-thinking frogs among them (though who can say where
these free-thinkers come from?) that this bird was being
used by the Boss Frog to comfort and distract them with
tales of pie in the sky which you get when you die. “And
that’s a lie!” the bottom-dog frogs bitterly croaked.
But there was among the bottom-dog frogs a philosopher
frog who had invented a new and quite interesting idea about
the skylark. “What the lark says is not exactly a lie,” the
philosopher frog suggested. “Nor is it madness. What the
lark is really telling us about in its own queer way is the beau-
tiful place we might make of this unhappy well of ours if
only we set our minds to it. When the lark sings of sun and
moon, it means the wonderful new forms of illumination we
might introduce to dispel the darkness we live in. When it
sings of the wide and windy skies, it means the healthful
ventilation we should be enjoying instead of the dank and
fetid airs we have grown accustomed to. When it sings of
growing giddy with its dizzy swooping through the heavens,
it means the delights of the liberated senses we should all
know if we were not forced to waste our lives at such oppres-
sive drudgery. Most important, when it sings of soaring wild
and unfettered among the stars, it means the freedom we
shall all have when the onus of the Boss Frog is removed from
our backs forever. So you see: the bird is not to be scorned.
Rather, it should be appreciated and praised for bestowing on
us an inspiration that emancipates us from despair.”
Thanks to the philosopher frog, the bottom-dog frogs came
to have a new and affectionate view of the skylark. In fact,
when the revolution finally came (for revolutions always do
come), the bottom-dog frogs even inscribed the image of the
skylark on their banners and marched to the barricades doing
the best they could in their croaking way to imitate the bird's
lyrical tunes. Following the Boss Frog’s overthrow, the once
dark, dank well was magnificently illuminated and ventilated
and made a much more comfortable place to live. In addition,
the frogs experienced a new and gratifying leisure with many
attendant delights of the senses—even as the philosopher frog
had foretold.
But still the eccentric skylark would come visiting with
tales of the sun and the moon and the stars, of mountains
and valleys and seas, and of grand winged adventures it had
known.
“Perhaps," conjectured the philosopher frog, "this bird is
mad, after all. Surely we have no further need of these
cryptic songs. And in any case, it is very tiresome to have
to listen to fantasies when the fantasies have lost their social
relevance.”
So one day the frogs contrived to capture the lark. And
upon so doing, they stuffed it and put it in their newly built
civic (admission-free) museum ... in a place of honor.
**
This is but an excerpt...click on to this link to Roszak's book online free...link opens right up to the book:
https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.130692/2015.130692.The-Making-Of-A-Counter-Culture_text.pdf“
Perhaps," conjectured the philosopher frog, "this bird is
mad, after all. Surely we have no further need of these
cryptic songs. And in any case, it is very tiresome to have
to listen to fantasies when the fantasies have lost their social
relevance.”
So one day the frogs contrived to capture the lark. And
upon so doing, they stuffed it and put it in their newly built
civic (admission-free) museum ... in a place of honor.
**
Click on to this link to Roszak's book online free...link opens right up to the book:
https://dn790002.ca.archive.org/0/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.130692/2015.130692.The-Making-Of-A-Counter-Culture_text.pdf
Brunch With Nietzsche, A Dazzlement
Dear Friedrich,
I am the man most pursued in last night's dream.
That emaciated thing at my back keeps tracking me.
I remain just out of reach. Classic. Even there
as here I am escaping something, a life time of
practice in this 'Kingdom of the Canker'.
It was no banker who followed me last night
but a starved lacklove rejected by 'Canker' and, well,
by me. Who'd want that part all start and no finish?
Replenishment has often enough meant hiding out
and a demand that it keep at least 5 arm lengths away.
I will try, I tell it, to look at it but I find its presence
most disturbing. Its handful of leaves continually
proffered leaves me in a quandary. What do they
mean, this offering, though my father was a lumberjack?
Perhaps this is a track of sorts to follow for an end
to the mystery.
I am stumped.
One adjusts. Continually.
The persona is adaptation
appearing to be solid but sleep reveals the neutrality
of the animal.
Dreams tell us otherwise
when we remember them as it takes an ego to witness,
to remember.
They reveal that we are
caught up into something so much greater than
flush and stir.
It's a wonder we make do
as much as we do and still call ourselves by name,
a species of animal, 'homo sapiens'.
I regret self pity.
I'd reject it if I could but it adheres,
last resort of old coots born honestly
into it no matter the copious Mercurochrome baths,
the smelling salts obviating the needed nipple.
The stippled trout I nightly catch,
pink insides turned out by blue blade
kept beneath the pillow,
baits me with the riddle
again and again.
Something about a stand of trees,
a man carving some bark,
what breath is for.
Today the Market reports a run on Mercurochrome.
Birth goes on.
I am for rebirth.
A dirth of days makes me suddenly Hindu,
foregoing gurus and bindu point.
I've made my own here.
Selah.
Still, methinks I'll have your ear
for a little while longer, a handful of leaves only for
my thanks,
one foot well into
'Cracked and Crank', the drunk tank a memory
worn out.
Doubt is my companion.
Love, too. No remorse here.
Buys me time, aftershave and
loads of underwear for the trickles ahead.
Thank the gods for all that.
Oh. And one last good cigar.
Truly,
Birdie
A crudité of Nietzsche from his book Untimely Meditations:
"To the worm a corpse is a pleasant thought, and to everything living
a worm is a dreadful one. The worm's idea of Heaven is a fat carcass,
the philosophy professor's is grubbing about in the entrails of
Schopenhauer, and as long as there are rats there will also be a rat
Heaven. This provides the answer to our first question: how does the
new believer imagine his Heaven? The Straussian philistine lodges
in the works of our great poets and composers like a worm which
lives by destroying, admires by consuming, reveres by digesting."
— bottom of p.24
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