The Sweet Apocalypse
(An Essay About Dying Current Civilization)
by Ivancho JOTATA, Sofia, 2018
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THE SWEET APOCALYPSE
(An Essay About Dying Current Civilization)
By Ivancho Jotata, known also as Ochnavi Atatoj, Ivan Bugarow, Jotabash Giaurgi, Nostradamus Buladamus, and other cloning names
Resume: This is a paper about the decline of our civilization, in what we don't believe en masse because it is not felt as dying, it smells good, yet it is a decline, obviously for those who give a thought to it. So that I will explain why this is so, in what it chiefly expresses itself, and what would have been good to do, if we don't like much this idea. But this time, maybe for change, or because you, people, as a rule, don't like especially structured things, they look boring for most of you, I will not structure the material, it will be just a narration, dreams, play of the imagination, such things.
I have come to the idea for this paper turning in my head the word apocalypse (or -sus), where apo- is a prefix in old Greek said to mean back /-ward, but I think that the idea here is rather in some movement ahead due to some digging, picking, delving, like with a pickaxe, of making a step forward. This has to be so because dopo in Italian is after, and only po in Latin, as shortened from podex, is something near to the ground, what is to the same idea if we imagine that we have walked on ... our fours, and then have sat on our derriere-bottom (and so on, I will try not to indulge in pretty long etymological explanations). In some cyclical process there has not to be big difference whether we move in one direction or in the opposite, and it can also be meant that pulling ourselves back we see better the object, or that we return back in the time to some primeval chaos, but I have in mind this picking and making of step because of the old Arabic hap /ap as a morsel, i.e. we have tried to bite a piece from this kalo thing. Yet the important is not the prefix but the root and I have dug about kalo-root maybe before a quarter of a century, and have come to the conclusion that this mean both, good, or bad things, it depends. Depends on what? Ah, on the look that we cast at the metamorphosis of the things, because the decaying is a bad thing, but it is also good, it is unavoidable, necessary.
These are dialectical reflections, which people do not do nowadays but have to -- if you ask me, that's it. So the reasons for this meaning are, for one thing, Bulgarian word 'kal' meaning mud, or Russian the same 'kal' but meaning there sh#t (guano in Latin), if I may allow myself to use such words; and for another thing there are many words with this root as something good, like: kaleidoscope, Greek kalimera as good day, their muse Calliope, the callanetics, Turkish and Bulgarian kalay as the metal tin, and others. But one can cite also only the Hindu goddess Kali, which is a goddess, yet on the under-terrestrial world. And with all these long explanations I want to tell you that the apocalypse is moving to the mud or sh#t, or the decay, or that we want to bite in it. To some similar ideas one can come digging around Arabic kef /kief /kaif as big pleasure, where is Russian 'kefir' as kind of sour milk, but also Sanskrit kaphas as slime or sediment (or then Persian kaf /kafa as a foam or froth). Id est, we like the dirty thinks, we know that they are dirty, but we often like them all the same.
And the apocalypse, or at least the first steps towards it, look more or less good, we have so many things that we just wonder what to throw out to the garbage first, but this is not pretty clever. This is not much clever because it is one thing to make natural kal-mud, and quite another thing to produce things that do not turn to mud or sh#t. I usually like to make here difference between: ecologically clean dirtiness, and ecologically dirty cleanliness! In the same way may be made difference between necessary decaying or wrong decaying (of the society in general). Here the problems are not only in qualitative aspect, but also in quantitative, in the measure or proportion, and as far as no god, existing or not, tells us what is right and what not, it becomes necessary for such clever guy like me -- what is seen at least by the fact that I am not valued in my barbarian country (or rather am valued about 3 bus tickets daily, as I have already explained in other materials), because in such countries are valued and liked, by the official instances, as well also by the masses, people who have as less brains as possible (in order to be easily bamboozled by our democratic authorities) -- to indulge in popular explanations of obvious things.
But let me dwell for a while about the garbage. As I was young, before half a century, the things that we threw to the garbage were only naturally decaying things (like potato peels, or melon rinds, or something already spoiled), but now the part of this kind of garbage, what has to be the real garbage, is a priory about 10% of all that we throw out. We know this, we take some measures, but this is, as they say, a drop in the ocean. For example, in my poor Bulgaria, in the capital Sofia, in the moment, there are garbage cans as if for separate collection of the waste, that are, mark this, for paper, plastics, and metals, which are, or must be, objects of entirely different process of recycling of destroying. And nobody bothers, I mean officially. But unofficially our Gypsies (here unquestionably they) have begun to perform this separate collection; they have divided themselves in groups (according to their "specialty" or preferences, or market mechanisms, I don't know exactly) and tour the garbage bins every day. Those, who have come to the idea that the plastics are easily transported and relatively well paid, have harnessed some old horse or donkey in a primitively constructed cart with high boards (even of meshes) and made often tours to do this necessary work (and nobody says them thanks). Without the Gypsies we are ready to bury the air in the bottles in the ground not blinking an eye.
But this is not everything, one growing percent of the garbage become the clothes and garments, to say nothing about the various kitchen appliances, even cars, and building wastes. On one hand -- because I have though about these things -- one may say that this is the same method which our dear God, or the nature, uses, He/it produces thousand and million times more things than necessary (take, e.g., the number of ... spermatozoa), and leaves the other biological organisms to find some use of them. Yeah, OK, but these natural things dissolve themselves, in the nature everything is used by someone or something, while we have not yet found bacteria that eat the plastics, or the plaster, or the wood, or the metals; the iron in principle corrodes, but we don't use such pure metal nowadays, the electronic chips hardly corrode. In a way, I think, here the situation is similar with the necropolis, which tends to become larger than the acropolis (and probably will, after a pair of centuries). And we not only do not collect the garbage as it has to be done, but produce on purpose more and more emballage-packagings than necessary in order to deceive the gullible buyers.
Where it would have been else if we have learned to do dissolvable, say, chairs, which are strong enough to carry one normal person (of less than 120 kg), but which put on the open will by the first rain turn to some pulpy mash which will then even nourish the earth so that our tomatoes (or whatever) will grow bigger and faster. Or something of the kind instead of the tins, or also bottles, consisting of some kind of pressed manure put before 2 thin layers of plastic, which will dissolve in the same way after slight rubbing or cracking or tearing. Such things will not last long and will be vulnerable, but they will be good for the nature (-God). The other approach is to return the packaging and to use it again, or just to destroy them centralized, but not in the way how this is done nowadays, really for nothing, but for some decent price (above 10% of the product, and sometimes to the half of it, how it really costs, yet only when you buy the product). The returning is related with carrying of loads, what people detest, but we forget to think about the nature (how we often forget about the partner in practicing some amorous activities).
But we not only do not move in the right direction, we move specially in the wrong one, as I said, if this brings profits. Say, at least 95 % of the printed ads are unnecessary, some are thrown directly around the mailboxes, some a bit later, only about 5% of the people, the obvious simpletons, read them, and about 10% pretend not to read them, yet cast a furtive glance at them; still, about 10 percents is something significant for the shops. If people were really thinking animals I would have proposed to build in each entrance of big homes, or else behind windows in some cubicles, TV screens, say, 10 x 15 up to 20 x 30 cm, which in the current days will cost not much, and could be paid by joint efforts of the nearby shops, where they can display everything they want, and who is interested can look at the ads and prices. Yeah, but we are beings only capable to think, and do this after we have exhausted all unreasonable methods for reaching of a given goal, so that I don't propose this. I have the feeling that we will begin to allow the customers to build even disposable homes, that can be used for a pair of nights (or months, then) and left to dissolve somehow for an year or so.
This can be done, I expect, with the usage of some hardener, and when it is sprayed over a heap of earth, or better sand, watered sufficiently, all this mass will harden after a pair of hours and stay so for two months, under normal atmospheric conditions. And about 100 g of this hardener will suffice for small cabin, 200 g for one-storey home, and 3 to 4 hundred grams for two story house (only with swimming pool it can turn up to one kilo of if, ah?). Then the major problem will be to level the ground, after what are made inflatable outer and inner walls with some foot pump, it is put between them the fixed with the hardener earth-or-sand-or-gravel, is waited for a couple of hours and in the meantime is fixed some roof of plastic and ... tree leaves (for example), and you are ready to sleep this night and some of the following on a heap of freshly mowed hay; the water and electricity supply, as well as the sewage, can be already waiting, if this is a kind of picnic grounds. You think this is fantastic? Well, it is, but who knows what will be the powers of building industry after a century (when we can now speak with our colleague on the desk in front of us via a cell phone, sending and receiving signals in the space)? We can easily come to this, but not to finding of ways to use old homes, or kitchen plates, or washing machines, or cars, or coffee-machines (or even old friends).
But, people, to throw out one, e.g., coffee maker, after 2 years of use, when it can stay for about 15, is the same as to drive away your ... children when they enter into their teens (because 1/7-th is about 12 years, if we live about 80 years); or if not exactly the same, then quite similar. The things may not have soul, but they are materialization of human labour, this is obvious, and in this way you throw away 6/7-th of your life, so to say, you confess that what you have done, you have done for nothing, this was not at all necessary! And we throw the things, really, when they have done approximately 1/5 to 1/10 -th of their length of usage. And maybe I am wrong about the soul, maybe they have, what if they have? And also the plants or animals, they have to have it. Because what is a soul, ah? These are the basic principles of existing of something, or some kind of memory, and they exist, naturally, and remember in their own way. I am atheist, as I said, and I don't believe in God, more so in souls of the grass or the stone, but do you know what I am doing for about a pair of years with some plants that I grow on the terrace in my fifth storey? Ah, I have chosen some bench on one bus stop, and I carry there periodically (maybe 10 times in the year) some seedlings of spices and leave them there and somebody takes them. This is one of my ways to sabotage the market economy, I want to give something to the people without money. And I sometimes dream that I have went in the paradise and there this Petronimus or somebody other says to me: Ah, listen Jotata-Atatoj, you have killed 17 plants -- look here, this is the hand of God -- hence you will not be allowed to have ... blowjobs by our ladies -- because, I confess, this is my ardent wish, and if not by the very Holy Mary then by some other holy virgin -- whenever you just want, no, God says, no oftener than once in a week, at least for the first 100 millions of years. And this will spoil my whole stay in the paradise, really.
Well, I am joking, the carnal pleasures when in form of pure idea are something questionable -- yet this is not my business, it is duty of our dear God to make them possible -- but the point is that how you act with the things, in similar way you act with the people around, you think that they are also ... disposable! And if they do not have souls then you must have it, together with your habits, and one becomes used to use some clothing or chair, or desk, or screwdriver, if you want, so that why should you be deprived of something known in the name of ... better exploitation, in the end? Because this model of behaviour that we have is surely immoral, but we are made to follow it only because buying more things, no matter whether we use them, forces us to work harder in order to have the money to buy such things -- obvious, my dear Watson. Yes, only that this does not make us happy -- what makes me to shed tears about the silly humankind (were I not so clever for to understand that if we were all clever we would have lead very ... dull life -- to what I may come later, if will not forget to). Because the happiness, people, is a thing that depends highly on the wishes and abilities, so that, how already the ancient Greeks have said, there are two way to make somebody happy, either to give him (or her, naturally) this what he wants, or to make him to wish less than he wishes (to set obstacles before him). Funny or not but this is psychologically sound, and under the communism we have had many obstacles for our wishes and due to this we were, in a way, happier than are now, when we have no other obstructions except the necessary money.
And, mark, that if you receive everything that you want, you begin to want more and more -- if not for other reasons then in order to find the amount that you may want and have --, while if you have some problems for satisfying of your desires you live more moderate and the moderation is quintessence of the wisdom, according to me (though here I reinvent the wheel, I suppose). This thoughts remind me one old anecdote, which I have heard in Russia in totalitarian times. It is about one Georgian, who has hooked an easy Russian girl and has went with her to his quarters, where she, as good professional, knowing her part of the business, has undressed fast and jumped in bed waiting for him. He, though, seeing this, has said to her: stand up, dress yourself, and resist! Yet we, because are now bigger unbelievers than the atheists (like myself), don't want to resist the dying (and good smelling) capitalism, we prefer to wait the sweet apocalypse as well-bred consumers, no matter that such behaviour is not moral. We prefer to invent new wishes, because are able to satisfy them, not because they are real necessities for us. This is confirmation of the fact that we have not interesting goal or purpose in life, but we don't care -- with the exception of those who care and because of this commit suicides or try to kill other people with themselves, to punish them!
Now, such people are fanatics, I don't defend them, but they are moral, even over-moral, they try to give meaning at least to their death, if they are forced to lead immoral life, they are not bad in principle, they are bad only because of the improper extent of their moral. Yeah, but we, in our masses are just immoral, and as I said, don't care about this, because there's morality crisis all over the world, and this is maybe the strongest argument that the society is decaying. The kamikazes are, from their point of view, heroes, and you know that such things happen, the bigger part of the fighters for necessary changes in society were officially persecuted in the beginning, the very Christians were given to hungry lions and bears in the beginning of our era, these are known facts. And, as I have met somewhere, the standard of life of the Arabs has fallen about 4 times after the Gulf War, what is more than Bulgarian ruination of living standard due to the transition to democracy (because there were no other reasons, in fact). And to work only for money is, obviously, immoral, this can be done to stimulate somehow the production, but has to be managed by the state in order not to lead us in undesired direction. And the Americans are for more than half a century world gendarmes and super power, and nobody likes such egoistic gendarmes.
So that, I don't know, if I were younger with at least 40 years (and were Muslim, etc.) and were "begged" to take part in this super action, I might have agreed, because something has to be done and nobody bothers, as I said. To be really younger is necessary prerequisite because the young people are those who like to act, generally said, not to sit and watch what happens around and try to endure. Now I am nearly enlightened person -- so that it is time for me to leave this world, ah? --, and my wisdom consists in this that I prefer to watch what the silly people do when they can't avoid it. But in this sense I like to tell you, what I have also promised to tell you, about the interesting and dull life. (For one thing the word "interesting" is built as something ... hidden in the terra-earth, some tasty radix, but this is purely etymological aspect.) The point is that what in interesting is nearly always risky, dangerous, we forget about this but the Chinese, as it turned, have had one curiously sounding for us ... curse, that we accept as nice wish, and it sounds so: may you have an interesting life! So that if I wanted interesting life in this sense I would have tried to enter in some such terrorist organization out of moral motives. You see, there is pretty educative Hindu poem called Bhagavad Gita where is stated that everybody has to do what he thinks is justified, and if some killing has to be done then it has to be done (because nobody knows the God's intentions, I suppose, but knows, more or less, his own), what is questionable thesis, yet it is applied by the humans nonetheless. And in the contradiction between the different actions of various people we come to the truth -- now to the sweet apocalypse, because most of the people don't give a damn about the morality, in pursuit of the Golden Calf.
Yet there is one peculiar aspect of our sufferings nowadays, namely that we suffer -- i.e. those who suffer, or rather who feel that they, in a way, suffer -- not because we are really bad, but because we are pretty good, yeah, we live exceedingly good! And to suffer by such conditions is just silly, be behave as morons or imbeciles, nearly so! Because we, as I repeated here many times, produce not less than necessary but more, when throw out a heap of good things. More than this, we do not need more people to do the work necessary for to live even better, no, we need as less people as possible (especially in the last half of the century when we have stopped -- temporarily I suppose, but still -- to use the masses as cannon fodder), and because of this we do not search any more for people for a given work, but search for work for a given group of people!
Yeah, but this is artificial thing, this has not to exist, and it has never existed before -- how have never existed, as far as I know, negative bank interests, but they are now reality, before the collapse of capitalism -- we have ever have more desires than can satisfy, but now we try to invent desires, invent works, insinuate in the masses that they have to consume and consume, because else they will stay jobless, this is mad situation, people! Something similar existed under the bad socialism, where people were employed without special necessity and they often did nothing on their work place, but there should have not existed unemployed people. Yet the latter was better because, really, the unemployment has very bad effect over the people (I know this pretty well, I am unemployed for more then 25 years just because my qualification was higher than necessary on the state of transition to not yet achieved stable democracy), but to produce also unnecessary things (that are thrown at once to the garbage) is much more worse!
And because of this we just wonder what more crazy thing to want, like, say, to bore not only the ear lobe and hang there something unnecessary, but to bore also one's tongue and to put there something that can't not hinder us. One may say: well, there is nothing bad in this, and if this can be easily done then why not? Where the answer is simple: this is not bad of itself, this is just symptomatic (for the decay)! And the question that not everything that can be done has to be done let me leave with no comments, because this has to be obvious. So that I will proceed now with some examples of moronic behaviour that can be expected to happen in the near, or even far, future.
Say, we will begin to grow synthetic organs just to make us more interesting than the others. For example, one goes to some clinic and they put his (or her, naturally) hand in ... liquid nitrogen so that the fingers drop by itself -- what can be done under narcosis, I suppose -- and then perform some special manipulation over the stump, put it in the necessary liquid in some appropriate container, and after a pair of weeks open the bandage and there emerges nice rosy hand, maybe even with 6 or 7 fingers, something like this. Or it can be made bigger 2 times, or, then, smaller, finer. Or maybe we will be able to grow another ... pair of hands, like Hindu gods, even if they will not function properly, but maybe they can be taught for an year or two, who knows? Or some wings, like angels, or new nose (twice longer), or ... scales like serpents or fishes, or the earlobes can be made half a meter long and one can train them to wave with them and cool himself, or then -- why not, come to think of it -- some artificial penis or another breast (because I suppose that rarely some women will want to have another vagina). This additional breast of whatever can be grown on every suitable -- i.e. unsuitable, to be sure -- place, say below the own two breasts, or on the back (because some men like to do it from behind) and then they can be 2 or 3 breasts from the neck and till the bottom (this will, unquestionably, made the individual original and extravagant, not like just to turn the cap with the visor to the back). And to have additional phallus here and there will be very decorating for men, I suppose, and even for women; it may not function, but just as a symbol, badge, something of a kind. One can put a tiny phallus even in the ... cup of the hand and wave with it when seeing friends, ah? This must be the last vogue some time or other.
Yet we can also disfigure ourselves, turn us to some monsters, change the skin of the body or the face, change even the bones (this is possible even today) and walk like with seven-mile booths, or build strong muscles to lift cars, or, ha, ha, to crack walnuts in you (if you have such thing) vagina. Or these things can be done with the use of gene engineering, what is not exactly moral, but can be made legal. Or then to grow gills (what can be useful sometimes, but not for the sake of it). Or long ... beak -- what would you say to this, ah? --, in which case one will be able to eat Chinese day in and day out without wood sticks, this may prove to be not only very original but also practical. And so on. I wouldn't be surprised if some people will be made also hermaphrodites, more so because there are such who want this even today.
In two words: we'll find in what way to kill our time, but this will be really killing, not filling it with some useful activity -- and even sex can be very useful activity, it is creative (because nobody approaches it from the standpoint or corresponding science, we all try to do it in our own way). While this, what every normal person wants -- I have come to this conclusion in my old age -- is to become known with something, and to leave some trace or mark after himself; when one is young he (she), naturally, wants to impose himself over the others, to conquer the world, but with the aging he becomes more and more to want just to be remembered with something, but in our consuming society there is nothing with which we can be remembered, we avoid doing alone whatever, we buy everything ready in the shops (even ear-sticks, which we, surely, can make alone, but why should we?), and this is why we begin with rotating of the cap and will finish with some artificial monstrosity. I have the feeling that if a spit, or ... snots -- I beg your pardon --, or piss, or faeces, etc., will turn useful for something there will immediately be found some producer and shops where this will be sold! (I don't exaggerate, because I have met somewhere that in some states have begun to sell ... egg shells, because they are good for the bones, they contain calcium in better form than in the milk, and I have alone come to this conclusion and for more than 10 years eat them and feel myself very good, but this is a thing that everybody has and throws away, why has one to buy this, ask I myself?)
But it is so in the apocalypse, when it happens slow and is not accompanied with big disorders; a holocaust (like atom bomb) is something else, it is painful, but to lie in, or bite out, the mud of the decay seems to us pretty nice, we feel no remorse doing this, but have to, if you ask me! We have to regret the too easy way of living, and try to do something useful alone. I see quite clearly that this is not for everybody, this is usually for about 5 to 10 percents of the people, who are more or less creative by their nature, while the majority of us just wants to perform whatever routine activity because this always ... gives satisfaction, and is paid not bad; the majority of people just can't reach the last stage of development consisting in evolvement and improvement of their own being. Surely, but this is because we are forced to win our living, yet if we live in the paradise -- you just imagine this -- we will try to fill our time with something interesting, everybody can find for himself something what he likes to do, so try to act all children, we must not lose entirely our children naivety and must wish to just play in live, and not to bother about the living.
And the peculiar moment here is that we are able to ensure living like in the paradise for literally everybody, but we simply don't want to do this, we are afraid that in this way some people will work hard, where some others will just consume ready things, what is, in principle, correct judgement, but this is because we have not approached the matter correctly! I have some obvious ideas -- nothing special, no mathematical calculus --, yet they require more profound discussions, what I do in my Communionismo and intend to do in my papers about the shortly invented NAPUK party, which ideas can help us to, if not entirely avoid, then postpone with some centuries the decaying of capitalism, or can smoothly carry us to the paradise. But firstly I wanted to convince you that we are, really, as if circling at the rim of a precipice. So that I think that, with clear conscience, I can finish now this paper.
May, 2018