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I find the poignancy of this dispute flavors the following manuscript.
Please excuse all actions of characters contained within this novel as
attempts, however ill-conceived, to wrestle whatever freedom they could
from an unfair system. this is the story of youth struggling for
freedom in a world of wage slavery.
These words came to me in my twentieth year, while I sat alone in a poor apartment in an industrial city, charnel house of the raped earth. I was surrounded by the blind avatars of a society which sought prestige in the rape of and escape from nature, poor minions who kept themselves enslaved feeding a technological civilization which--in turn--viewed them with distaste. With cars screaming on the streets and fuming factories puking up other such monstrosities by the second, I heard the voice--displaced and tormented--which dictated these words to me. It was a spell of vision and inspiration such as I live for, delivering to me at attack on all those who find their pleasure in machinery, those who seek stimulation in the abuse of the earth and of themselves. Such an experience (while it did last) altered my surroundings and brought me some relief from my exile within the barren city.
When these lines were shown to friends, they reacted with revulsion, recoiling as from a wounding blow. They were-most of them--aware of the ghoulish indecency of our society, but they sought to escape through drugs. With pills and needles they ran from the terror, running to the grave and to an imprisoning delusion. I partook of some of their pills, and of the magic weed which does have benefits when it is not abused--but of needles I was rightfully frightened. (And here is the secret of the needle, and of our society's need for it: the needle provides control for many who are displeased with the sort of life our culture has to offer.) I took my sanctuary, however, in creativity and in nature; I was nourished, given perseverance and strength.
I sought others who shared in my vision, and endeavored to bring understanding to those less gifted. And all this time I was alone and confused. I was still, myself, seeking to understand, confused by the signals received from the civilization into which I was born. Why did I not go to college, get a good job, marry and settle down; why did I not conform.
Underlying all these difficulties and, truly, impelling me onward is a
vision of life rich and sweet, which it is my purpose here to explain and
record. This is no secret to which I alone have the privilege of
being admitted; it lies well within our sight, so simple and obvious that
it is easily overlooked. Unperceiveable to adults conditioned by
our society while by children readily and joyfully viewed, it is the vision
of vitality in the world around us--it is an appreciation of the miracle
which is existence.
Despite what we have been taught is said by rational science, everything which exists is alive. It is our ego, not science, not religion, which tells us otherwise. Science says that everything is an illusion made up of action and energy, which are subatomic particles. It is christian dogma as interpreted by our ego-bound consciousness, not religion, which claims the soul as the exclusive property of man. Given that the creation implies a creator, and that God the creator dwells within everything (every object, feeling, and thought)--that, in fact, God the creator is the substance of creation--everything is self-promulgating: not only is everything alive but, as a portion of the creator, everything creates itself and has every right of existence. Where now, poor deluded man, does this leave your manipulative culture?
How can I say, without seeming a sadist, that there is much of pain which is necessary for living? Shall I formalize a law of opposites, a yin-yang, without it being used to condone unnecessary abuse? Should I attempt the statement that pain is the shadow of pleasure, that aggression is a necessary part of creation. There is pain and aggression in the transcendent pleasures of birth and death. There is pain and aggression in the ecstasy of creative inspiration--even in the writing of these words. Our every breath of air kills by the millions; the very oxygen we breath is a vital corrosive poison. And it is only by feeding on other things that we can live. All of this is sanctified as the sacred act of sharing. The animals and vegetables upon which we feed know that they will live in us, as that which they have fed upon has lived within them. It is only man who, by ignoring these facts, abuses the sacred trust.
This ignorance was at one time necessary for the development of our consciousness. Had we not separated ourselves from the rest of creation and placed ourselves above it there would be no art, no science, nor any of the redeeming qualities of human civilization. Even as it is being raped, the spirit of the earth has found some joy in our excesses, although these joys cannot serve to justify our continued abuses. As the cut worm forgives the plow, so the atoms bound in machinery take some pleasure in their man-given form even as they suffer from our abuse. Man has grown in his ignorance to the point where he must now remove his blinders though he still clings to them. While many yet refuse to acknowledge the equality and brotherhood of their fellow men, it has come time to either recognize that all things are equal and interrelated, or to plunge ourselves and this planet into oblivion (though oblivion is only a drastic and irreversible change, not a criminal conviction which must be served in time.)
All of this can be seen quite plainly, if a person will only allow themselves
to look. yet our society encourages us to refuse and refute this
view, to bury ourselves in the comfortable, stultifying inertia of our
society,. And those of us who cannot--or will not--close our eyes,
are made to feel like outcasts, ostracized for our compassion and our love
of truth.