THE VIRTUALLY AUTOMOTIVE JELLO OF THE CIVILIZED WHITEBREAD TELEVISION NOW
Tattooed limbs, painted faces, body-piercing ornaments, ritualistic dances through the mystic night to pounding primitive rhythms; native dress, painstakingly patterned hair, eyes with a jungle gaze, spirit-based, esoteric language; loss of tradition looming as they struggle to preserve their dying heritage--- you see the tribe every day at the mall.
We've each been tribally young on our ways to genuine age, the apparently brand-new ontogeny recapitulating what turns out to be the same ancient phylogeny as we pass too briefly through our primitive origins on our deepconsious way to assimilation in the macrocosmic melange that the present has become, the defanged, declawed, virtually automotive jello of the civilized whitebread television now, where we status what's left of our quo while wondering in that heart of our hearts what the hell ever happened to the world our genes used to know, missing those good old days when there weren't yet any good old days, when reality was what reality had always been, right on the mark and no mistake, when every blade of grass had a voice and every eye shone with spirit that had substance, if not reason, and required no justification.
Yes, we were once all untelevised tribespersons, to be virtually automotively politically correct; and deep in that heart of our hearts we still are tribespersons, despite our morphication into ingredients of said virtually automotive jello of the civilized whitebread television now. This explains that secret calling you've been feeling from out there in the dark beyond the edge of your career; the pounding heartlike drums at the core of your merely quantifiable bank account; the primitive melody welling up from far below your bottom line; the enchanting shimmer that draws your eyes toward the depth among the remaining trees, yearns your legs toward the forest path; it's your phylogeny on hold on the other line: you gonna pick it up or what?
Another of my readings from the old days of the Kyoto Connection...
2 comments:
Howdy Bob,
Back before going to Japan, I began an anthropology masters at UCSB. During that time, I was all about things tribal, justifying getting a tattoo or dropping acid as a ritual experience. Genetic call of the wild, I guess.
Later, I began to look at this neo-primitivism as a side of effect of our hyper-consumer culture. Being exposed to incessant advertising day after day seems to have created a generation that feels devoid of self-worth unless they themselves have a logo, in the form of a tattoo or a piece of metal penetrating a body part.
I have the feeling there's a deep and ancient tribal tendency/yearning in humankind that is increasingly frustrated by modern distractions/deviations that tend toward loneliness...
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