We are looking for new scientific recipes, new ideologies, new control systems, new institutions, new instruments to eliminate the dreadful consequences of our previous recipes, ideologies, control systems, institutions and instruments. We treat the fatal consequences of technology as though they were a technical defect that could be remedied by technology alone. We are looking for an objective way out of the crisis of objectivism.

-Václáv Havel

If ever I write a manifesto, the introduction will say this: “Listen to your heart and act rightly; theory is no substitute for conscience.” By developing Abandonism into a workable theory, I intend to address the  failures of reformist and revolutionary thought in confronting oppressive power structures. Yet I fear repackaging the same mistakes into something all the more insidious for its apparent novelty. The danger of ideology, of all ideologies, is that they are more significant as a structure of thinking than for the content of the thoughts.

I sometimes wonder how I would react if I were to meet an Abandonist, say, five years from now when the theory is cogent and I am involved in some serious projects. The first thought I notice when posing this question to myself is, Yeah, you’d prolly hate ‘em. Wait, what? You know, elitist intellectuals who think they’ve found the final cure for society. You hate those people. Shit. I do. And I sure as hell don’t want my theory to be lotion on the palm of intellectual masturbation.

So how would it get to that point, and how I can minimize the risk? See, at the outset Abandonism is very straightforward: use local resources to address local needs, in the process circumventing institutions and renegotiating power. But what happens when your local projects achieve success? Shouldn’t they grow and be implemented elsewhere? What’s the difference between that and an institution and shouldn’t we then abandon a giant before it turns leviathan? Now Abandonism becomes tricky, because we must never abandon simply for the sake of abandoning. And if we start doing that, we’ll have to abandon Abandonism for whatever is emerging to address its failures in confronting oppressive power structures.

Ideologies are mistaken as descriptions of reality. They are not. They are tools for operating inside an ambiguous context. They offer us general principles, and a decent idea of what to do in a given situation. When we take an ideology as an understanding of truth, we lose perspective. We begin to find evidence in support of our ideology more in the very actions informed by that ideology than in the world itself. At that point many people allow ideologies to become self-fulfilling, to act out their dictates and ignore external evidence in a desperate grasp to thrust meaning upon a confusing and unrestricted world. I strive, however, to see ideology in its context and use it solely for its capacity to inform action.

So when I write about Abandonism, that is what I am offering–not a description of reality, but a tool for operating inside an ambiguous context. The limits of Abandonism lie at the edge of truth: the closer you get to one, the further you get from the other. Ideology, which has nothing to do with truth, is a tool of the intellect precisely because the latter alone cannot fathom truth. We must trust our deeper senses at every step, and act according to what we feel is right. We may use Abandonism along the way, but the moment we allow it to use us is the moment we must forsake it.

Ain’t wrote in a week on account of working too much overtime. Gonna be getting back to the original style writings about ideology and social theory this week. For now, though, here’s a couple more poems for you to enjoy. Watch these videos back to back, and ponder wealth, hip hop, and identity:

This is a goddam intense poem worth watching multiple times:

One of the reasons this blog went to sleep for many months is I wanted to escape my own pedantry and commit myself to working on a different brand of wordsmithing–poetry. That’s what I believed at the time, anyway, because after I made that choice I didn’t put energy into any wordsmithing of any sort, I just went to work and played video games.

Now that I’m writing again, I don’t want to see this blog as interfering with my time and energy that might otherwise be used to write poetry. I’m going to be posting more under the new category of spitting. I aspire to have full length pieces that provoke introspection and expound the mysteries of the human condition, but, until those come out, I’ll be posting shorter verses of whatever I’ve been working on that day.

Be free to critique anything I post; such is the nature of public offerings. For now, here is a short one I put together today (jacked beat from a Wu-Tang instrumental):

This verse is a joke, mostly comprised of what I can remember from on-the-saddle freestyles.

I spat it with a quiet intensity I usually save for enemies: “We buryin’ kids and you worryin’ about a popsicle!” The object of my wrath was no enemy of mine, however, but a kid who lives at the group home where I work. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken to one of my kids out of anger. My work is driven by that compassion which has its roots in understanding, but a few hours ago I sat in a funeral home with salt stinging my eyes and heart; my understanding decided to leave me alone and anger rushed in to take up the vacancy. A 17 year old boy I used to work with is dead–shot in the street for running his mouth earlier in the night.

Time soothes all and the cool waters of wisdom drown the flames of despondency. The relief, however, lies not in answers but in acceptance. It’s not enough to be angry at young bangers for killing each other over the myths of territory and manhood. It’s not enough to be angry at the police for terrorizing communities of color. It’s not enough to be angry at the drugs, the guns, the abuse. It’s not enough to be angry. Our communities are not well, though their infirmities vary from hopelessness to callousness.

So I have to accept this violence by seeing its roots. This obsession with claiming sets is a survival mechanism meant to supplant the otherwise destroyed collective esteem of communities. It fucking pisses me off that things are such. It fucking pisses me off even more that this is a daily reality for so many while most of my demographic is totally aloof.

It’s not enough to be angry. We are collectively sick and the remedy lies in restoring a healthy collective esteem. But since I take for granted that self determination trumps good intentions, what is my role in this struggle?

I leave you with a Cee-Lo verse from the Goodie Mob track Fighting:

Damon Albarn sings, “The world is spinning too fast, I bought these Nike shoes / to keep myself tethered to the days I try to lose.” I’m an aspiring transcendentalist, so I won’t by shoes to tether me, but I will write.

I’m in a place I’ve been before. One year ago I forsook Chicago and dreamed of sunny San Francisco days. Now I find I have forsaken SF and long to be back in the heartland. Plans are in motion; come November I return just in time to breath that late Midwestern autumn air.

The task now befalls me to avoid the despair I felt last year–to not count days, nor spite time. My heart is already back there, but three months’ weight burdens my shoulders. I need to value the present, for anticipation is an agony that never hastened the passing of time.

I need to keep myself tethered. To do this, I will write–blog posts, poetry, emails and letters. Perhaps this is a ruse to trick my brain into quantifying time to allay a sense of loss. Perhaps it is a distraction. For your part, dear reader, it’s all teleological.

We are all at the same time beautifully unique and completely interdependent. Everything that makes up “me” is an external element, so “I” is nothing but the aggregate of things that “I” is not. What, then, is the self? From this arises the Buddhist doctrine of non-self. The individual is like a wave rolling up from the ocean of reality. Certain conditions came together to form the temporary wave. No two waves are the same, yet they are both formed of the same water. The wave has its own life, its own qualities, and its own force; yet eventually the conditions which allowed it to manifest will change and it will disappear back into the ocean. Energy is not lost in this process, it is simply transferred and transformed. So it is with us when we die.

At the same time, each self-aggregate is unique and possesses its own qualities and capacities. I am the result of forces I did not control, and so I may question the role of volition in my existence. Yet, I am capable of thoughts, feelings and experiences that will be unique to me. It is this individual experience that allows for beauty in human existence.

Self is non-existent at the same time it is of ultimate importance. To reach my highest potential I must recognize that “I” does not exist, because self is the aggregate of the external. And yet, to truly respect interdependence, I must celebrate my individuality. It is precisely because I cannot own my achievements that I must achieve, for I am humanity.

Dwell on this.