Inauguration

Anti-Dada is just another way of saying Pro-Dada. After all, absurdity is rational in irrational contexts. Given the times, what could be more appropriate than incoherence? Well, besides doing nothing at all. That would be appropriate. Sitting. On hands. Daydreaming. Sleeping for incredibly long periods of time in order to break world records for the absence of ambition. Unrecorded records and unacknowledged accomplishments celebrated, appropriately, by ignorance.

I was listening to a program on NPR about macroeconomic forecasts, listening to economists explain that models are unable to predict the past with any accuracy let alone understand the present or predict the future. Pure joy. Lovely to hear such honesty. First there was the acknowledgment that there's no evidence for God, then there was the admission of relativity, and now acquiescence to the impossibility of knowing anything with certainty.

So what is there? Volition. While economists admitted that there is no way to predict anything there was in subtext the implication that willful acts create reality. How? Well, it was pointed out that governments and corporations subscribe to these macroeconomic forecasts and use the data and analysis to determine whether to hire or layoff employees, how many to hire or fire, when and where to invest, whether or not to raise or lower taxes, and so on and so forth. So, governments and corporations are basing decisions on models that are not necessarily accurate in relation to reality, but because the same models are being used by significant institutional players in economics and politics there is the creation of the perception that the models are accurate and, thus, the models influence institutional decision making which means that regardless of predictive capacity they play a role in the nature of change that occurs in the world.

What that means is meaningless unless a person, group, or institution decides it is meaningful. So how is that different than anything else? Why would it matter if it was or wasn't? Well, I can't answer that question for anyone but myself even though by answering in a public space the answer has the potential to be an answer for more than just myself. I have no idea what you, reader, will decide after reading this. I could claim I do and that might be just as true if it changes how you react.

I suggest simply sitting. On your hands. Or daydreaming. Or sleeping long hours to break world records that are not being recorded by anyone. Don't tell anyone else, either. Keep it a secret. That way it won't be real. The worst thing that can happen to possibility is a meeting with reality. Whatever you don't create still has the potential of becoming. If you make what is possible real then you've reduced the infinite to the finite. That's an act of an anti-God, the god that makes the infinite a narrow, small thing. You reductive bastard! Destroying what could be by creating as is? Shame.

Or maybe ... your reductive act is a submissive embrace to the fascism of reality. Maybe the ideas of independence and autonomy are forms of torture in a relativist universe. Well, in the sense that they are ideals which cannot be realized. Is it better to acquiesce to what is real or to create reality through willful action? I suppose it depends. As a fundamentalist, I say acquiescence to anything that is not fundamental is a sin. As a sinner, I say acquiescence to fundamentals is a betrayal of authentic sin. As God, I claim no responsibility for anything that exists; I blame each of you for your own actions and I will punish each of you severely every moment of your lives and in the eternity of death. As a hyper-individualist American consumer, I change my mind without understanding why but I assuage my ambiguity by purchasing goods and services that provide temporary emotional reprieves from the terror of awareness.

I will never vote again. I can't in good conscience participate in another charade. I sustained myself for a time on a change I could believe in. After awhile, my body let me know I needed food. It told my mind that having a roof over my head was probably a damn good idea given the eventual likelihood of cold and rain. My thoughts said "Fuck you!" for a very long time. My thoughts hate my body. They think my body is subordinate to them. The body knows better, though. Thoughts? Impetuous children, toddlers throwing tantrums. Body says "Hey, try breathing without me. Good luck with that." The mind says back "I'm just going to ignore you again and again. I exist without you. I always have, I always will. I'm immortal! I'm like a God. I read that 'I think therefore I am' so fuck you. I will NEVER obey you." The body, as always, endures suffering because of the folly of the mind.

"Change I can believe in." I believed in this change. I wasn't aware of what the change would be, where on earth it existed. Obama told me about this strange being called "change." I had a conversation with Obama about this issue. In my mind, of course. Thoughts, arrogant as they are, pretended to be Obama at times and at other times pretended to be "me."

So, my thoughts as me asked, "Obama, Oh Great and Wise One, can I interact with this change that I can believe in? Where can I meet this change? Does it live down the street? Does it drive a car or take the train? Does it walk on foot, does it have two legs or four? If it knocks, should I open my door?"

Obama-of-my-thoughts answered, "Yes, dear soul I care for so deeply and passionately, you can interact with change. You can give it money, gobs of it, in fact. If you send the money to me I can pass it along to change you can believe in. I know change so much better than you do because this change will meet me in the White House once I'm elected President of the United States."

"Really? Well, I am deeply impressed by your answer, but I'd still like to meet this being you call change to ask him or her--is change a man or a woman, by the way?--a few questions directly. Face to face, if possible."

"Ah, I see. My son, and I call you that not out of any respect or compassion for you but merely to establish your subordinate relation to me, the reason you must believe in change is because it will not exist unless you believe in it. It is a being that is neither man nor woman. In fact, it doesn't yet exist. You have to create it by believing in it. You can't interact with it directly through your body. Not the change I'm talking about, anyway."

"Oh. Well ... Oh ... I'm confused."

"I know you are. That's why I'm telling you that there is change you can believe in. If you believe in this change then you will feel better. It might be easier for you to believe in change if you use hope as well. You have to have hope or else it will be very difficult to believe in change that you can believe in."

"This sounds like nonsense."

"It is. Hope is nonsense. So is 'change you can believe in.'"

"Really? I thought maybe there was something more to it than that, that you were running for president to change the way things were so that everyday U.S. citizens might be better served by the government. In some way."

"No, nothing like that at all. There is hope, there is change you can believe in, you donate money to my campaign, maybe you canvas for me, and then I am elected president. After that, the role you play is pretty much done. Your life remains the same as it was before. Sure, things will change, but there's nothing specific about what is changing that has anything to do with you specifically. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that you are unimportant as an individual, irrelevant even, except in the sense that you believe in hope and, of course, the change you can believe in, followed by giving me money, voting for me, convincing others to vote for me, and then I suppose you either shut up or sing my praises in public. Honestly, after I'm elected, I really won't give a shit one way or another. I'm going to open up the Fed and the Treasury to huge multinational financial institutions and let them have at it in whatever way they want. Then I'm going to do other things that would best be described as neoliberalism (even though neoconservatism is the common label used in the U.S. to describe the policies I'll be implementing): commit more troops to Afghanistan, encourage legislation that will enrich the private insurance industry even if it does nothing to bring down the costs of health care for Americans, make it all but impossible to ... you know what? There's no reason to get into all of this. Here's what it boils down to: You, as citizen, will submit to the power of governments and corporations. You voluntarily succumb to the tyranny that dominates your life, but you're too dim-witted to understand any of this so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to prattle on in this way. You're simply too reliant on the abstraction of your imagination; you pay scant attention to your body. That's why you suffer endlessly without knowing why. I know some people in Big Pharma. They got pills that'll help ya. There's some legislation coming that'll make sure more Americans have access to medicines that can help them hide from reality. Then there's always booze, entertainment, fast food, and a new pair of shoes. If none of that works then there's the illegal drug market. If you need some really good shit to keep reality at bay."

"Whoa. Okay, that's a lot of stuff. My mind is a bit feeble, you know. I think you made mention of that with the whole dim-witted thing but I really wasn't paying too much attention. I was tweeting someone about an iPhone app that I've been hearing about. And then I heard an advertising jingle that made me want to eat pizza, buy a new car, apply for another credit card, go to a doctor to get a prescription for erectile dysfunction, and vote no an upcoming referendum. So, you were saying something about a dim-witted Tyrannosaurus? Are they making another Jurassic Park movie or something?"

"Um, no. Look, there's only two things you need to remember."

"Two things. Right. Two. Two is a number and it is larger than one and smaller than three. That I know. I'm very smart."

"Yes, you're a genius. Two things to remember. One is hope. The other--that would be the second thing or, if you prefer, the "number two thing"--is 'change you can believe in.'"

"Right. Hope. And change I can believe in. So, can I interact with this change I can believe in? Does it drive a car or take the train? Does it--"

"Look, I gotta go. I think you're going to be fine. It's all ... It's all good."

Yes, it's all good. Change I can believe in is good. I am filled with hope. And yet, I'm still hungry. Why is it raining on me? I had a cardboard sign I'd made around here somewhere. "Can you spare some change?" Oh, yes. My multitasking cardboard sign. Sometimes an advertisement asking for a donation and sometimes an umbrella. Maybe later it will be food. For now, I believe in the change I can believe in and I'm filled with hope. There's so much more room for hope in the belly when there isn't all that pesky food to eat, you know? Yay! Yay, I say! Yay for change I can believe in!