A Late Chapter in the Saga of My Non-Existentialism
Off the Charts Rage This Morning, So All I Could Muster Was This Surface of the Sun 2026. Acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24"
“If my thought-dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine.”
—Bob Dylan during his early thinking years, before the maids and swimming pools
Last week I checked out a book at the library, judging by its title: “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause”. A fitting phrase as well for my insignificant artistic and political struggle. It is a study about Russian dissidents from the post-Stalin era to the fall of the Soviet Union. I’m only a chapter in, while it competes for reading time with the rest of the books stacked up chair-side for my winter blues and comfort. Whether I finish or not isn’t a concern. Their story is over and in the past. I use its title to aid in my imagining an ever-expanding and unpredictable future. While toasting alone in the dark, as it pertains to political dreaming, the phrase feels good in my soul, even if there aren’t any other glasses within reach to clink. Thankfully, I’ve had better success with creative partners in crime, even if we’re careful, so careful, not to share political opinions, or at least mutually commit to just pussyfootin’ around any subject that might offend. This tenuous communion combined with the loving tolerance of family and friends, makes my present world livable outside of house and home. However, today I am confident that at this stage in my life, communing over the religio-political atrributes of right living is a wasted effort—Mr. Lone Wolf, stop howling at the moon. Nobody wants to take your ride.
I do not regret expressing my thought-dreams to all and sundry. Still, the cold and desolate return is beginning to freeze the potential communion I long prized as number one motivator for my art and philosophy. I might be reacting to the bias of my in group, now settled (not me) with retirement portfolios to manage, and willfully ignoring the undertow of propaganda pulling them out to sea. Peter Thiel is peeking in on the toilets of our grandchildren, but heck, these 401Ks are getting a bump up from Palantir®, so cheers to our future condos in Boca!
After many years of creative effort, as far as I can tell, I have not motivated a single adult back to the justice-thinking of his or her youth. I write and publish an art book about anti-genocide and only one person buys it—a German no less, who takes the honor a step further and writes a stellar review. Some of my favorite people can no longer tell right from wrong on a macro level. For instance, I’ve had arguments about the existence of 13,000 nuclear weapons worldwide locked and loaded for mass extinction, where the “Yeas” swear that the only way to deter nukes is more hoarding of nukes. 100 detonated in the same war ends human life on earth. And we buy organic broccoli and recycle peanut butter jars pretending to do our part to conserve a breathable atmosphere. Presently, the end will come abruptly in three ways: asteroid, caldera, or nuclear war. Only one of these annihilations is in the hands of human beings. If a person thinks that nuclear disarmament is not a justifiable litmus test for any politician, then he or she is on the wrong side of sane. Some people actually still pretend voting will fix things, yet no one demands that their favorite politician decry nukes (any one vetted to the top since 1940), or genocide (Kamala Harris), or child raping (Donald Trump). This week I discovered on social media that people I follow have been silent about the revelations in the Epstein Files, I suspect because their chosen federal leaders are equally guilty for concealing atrocities from the people, and both parties’ favorite genocidal state (Israel) was possibly sanctioning the child trafficking, so blame Russia. The Clintons and Trumps not only knew what Jeffery Epstein was doing, they possibly participated in the horror as well. But let’s move on, as ABC news covers the kidnapping of someone’s mommy prime time for 10 minutes while children are raped on the approval of our Presidents, past, present and future. Sadly, what people want, more than justice and peace on earth, is for their side to win. I am an informed citizen, as well as a proponent of fair play, even after myriad injections of cradle to grave propaganda. Although I’m partially immune, (thank my persistent effort) it has managed very well to sicken the nation’s voting majority. Arrogant ignorance is an American disease, and a world pandemic. It makes tribes and cults predict the consciences of adult men and women. It marginalizes into silence the healthy reactions to genocide and child rape.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
—Krisnamurti
There is still time. We wake up with it each day. Find rebellion in your soul. Toast with me to our hopeless cause! Otherwise it might be soooo lonely without you.
Is It True What They Do to Child Rapists in China? 2026. Oil pastel on paper, 9 x 12"