J.P. Woodcock here. I have looked inside myself this week and found, to my discomfort, that I am in exile from myself. How can this be you might ask? Well I am quite sure that modern psychology should have explanations for this estrangement from myself.
How long have you felt this way J.P.? Well it seems this imbalance in my demeanor began at an early age. As I reflect upon this concern I have realized, I am quite sure, that the me that is simply me drifted apart from the me that you interact with as early as ego and id and super ego began to shape me for public consumption.
How much more simple it would have been to be myself in a straight line than going through all of this fabrication of persona and then deconstruction of said fabrication of fabricated persona to reach this same age of construction less self that I am now striving for. I guess being circuitous is part of our curious post modern life or maybe we humans, as evolutionary beings, find this fabrication and subsequent deconstruction of our public self necessary to escape some wild tiger loping towards us in the openness of the brilliant sunlit savannah.
For the most part I would rather be left alone with my id. This is the real me. The me that has joy and relishes the coming light of day. I have come to realize that I have spent my entire life entertaining myself rather than concerning myself with the needs of the ego. Thus it must be the id that is the me that is simply me. I listen to music that I like and I only read books that I enjoy. I eat sleep and drink only what I like. I have pursued me, within myself, as much as I possibly can. But therein lies the problem.
In this life I have no problems with the concerns of the super-ego. One always has a good sense of when we have made mistakes or gotten caught with our hands in the cookie jar. Even age conspires to inform you of right and wrong.
No, what has caused my estrangement for the me that is simply me is the breakdown of my ego. Ego is not holding up the bargain. Ego has weakened with time and is no longer playing it’s part in this psychological apparatus that me, J.P. Woodcock, has constructed to be the me that is simply me.
Just exactly what do we do to engage the ego to rise from the depths, of late, of it’s uneven performance and make life safe for being the me that is simply me.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The Curious Mind of J. P. Woodecock #2
J.P. Woodcock here. I have been pondering man’s obsession with matters of life and death.
I, as a classic materialist, understand our need to acquire survival skills that include the art of staying alive. I mean, god man, we have to pay attention each day to economics, food gathering and maintaining a dry place to sleep at night. Why the state of our society depends on people just like me, J.P. Woodcock, getting up each morning and planning to spend the entire day slogging through daily living skills.
Large cities, highways and coffee shops would come to a standstill if our culture decided to reward staring into space all day instead of activities of commerce and money changing hands.
Affirmitively, I, J.P. Woodcock am in complete favor of fixating on matters of life. We are also doubly rewarded with the pleasures life skills bring us.
The level of human comfort is raised to pleasant standards when life skills are exercised properly. Food tastes better when you have higher grade ingredients for sauces and virgin oil for cooking. Cheese tastes better when a higher quality of fat is used in making your French goat cheese even if you aren’t in France.
Soups from Tuscany taste infinitely better than Gruel.
Then there is the matter of staying dry and warm. If you have quality life skills you will enjoy your stay inside much better in a brick home rather than a log cabin with river mud used for the mortar.
However none of this explains or justifies the Centuries we, us human beings in part or in general, have spent on matters of the dead. Now ancient Pharaohs and for that matter ancient Egyptians as a whole, at least those who could read, were more interested in death and the voyage to the dead than contemplating matters of the living. But, they had extra cash and time on their hands there in the dessert and who could blame them. In fact their obsession with death created a whole industry for the living to prepare for the dead.
In fact, now that I think of it, I may change my mind entirely about being against dwelling on matters of the dead. Whole industries have evolved over the years for worrying and caring for the dead even though they do not need industries to keep them cared for because they are in fact dead. The dead do not need to be embalmed but the living need to embalm the dead as it is good for the living to embalm the dead because embalming pays the bills for the living who are doing the embalming. And of course, it makes the living, who pay for the embalming, feel less guilty about the dead because they have paid for the embalming of the dead and, also, they are relieved they are not having to arrange for embalming themselves.
What a curious thought. All of this time I have been confused why we spend so much time and effort on the dead and now I know it’s for the benefit of the living.
In times of economic crisis instead of the government trying to create jobs for the living it would be infinitely more effective to raise our standard of living by asking for volunteers to pass away. Think of it, legions of people who would pass on to the next world, or the next stop or whatever you believe in could, in the short term, volunteer to move forward with those plans and benefit the living in the long term by taking that short term leap to the next world to benefit the needs and current financial benefit of the living. By increasing the level of the dieing the living would prosper.
The stock market would rise because of this flury of consumer spending on the dead by the living. Jobs would be created for taking care of the needs of the dead even though the dead don’t have needs. The living would spend lavishly on the dead because then they would be relieved they hadn’t died and they wouldn’t feel bad for the dead because they had gotten the dead everything they would need for their journey to a place where they probably don’t have any needs and a lot more shovels would be sold.
I will have to discuss this with my famous economist cohorts and fellow mini-economists to see if I am onto something. Hopefully they are still alive so they can help me formulate these economic theories on how to keep the living prosperous taking care of the needs of the dead who really don’t seem to have needs.
Is this some sort of scheme we, as fellow human beings, have created or is this sound commercial business practice.
For now J.P. Woodcock out.
I, as a classic materialist, understand our need to acquire survival skills that include the art of staying alive. I mean, god man, we have to pay attention each day to economics, food gathering and maintaining a dry place to sleep at night. Why the state of our society depends on people just like me, J.P. Woodcock, getting up each morning and planning to spend the entire day slogging through daily living skills.
Large cities, highways and coffee shops would come to a standstill if our culture decided to reward staring into space all day instead of activities of commerce and money changing hands.
Affirmitively, I, J.P. Woodcock am in complete favor of fixating on matters of life. We are also doubly rewarded with the pleasures life skills bring us.
The level of human comfort is raised to pleasant standards when life skills are exercised properly. Food tastes better when you have higher grade ingredients for sauces and virgin oil for cooking. Cheese tastes better when a higher quality of fat is used in making your French goat cheese even if you aren’t in France.
Soups from Tuscany taste infinitely better than Gruel.
Then there is the matter of staying dry and warm. If you have quality life skills you will enjoy your stay inside much better in a brick home rather than a log cabin with river mud used for the mortar.
However none of this explains or justifies the Centuries we, us human beings in part or in general, have spent on matters of the dead. Now ancient Pharaohs and for that matter ancient Egyptians as a whole, at least those who could read, were more interested in death and the voyage to the dead than contemplating matters of the living. But, they had extra cash and time on their hands there in the dessert and who could blame them. In fact their obsession with death created a whole industry for the living to prepare for the dead.
In fact, now that I think of it, I may change my mind entirely about being against dwelling on matters of the dead. Whole industries have evolved over the years for worrying and caring for the dead even though they do not need industries to keep them cared for because they are in fact dead. The dead do not need to be embalmed but the living need to embalm the dead as it is good for the living to embalm the dead because embalming pays the bills for the living who are doing the embalming. And of course, it makes the living, who pay for the embalming, feel less guilty about the dead because they have paid for the embalming of the dead and, also, they are relieved they are not having to arrange for embalming themselves.
What a curious thought. All of this time I have been confused why we spend so much time and effort on the dead and now I know it’s for the benefit of the living.
In times of economic crisis instead of the government trying to create jobs for the living it would be infinitely more effective to raise our standard of living by asking for volunteers to pass away. Think of it, legions of people who would pass on to the next world, or the next stop or whatever you believe in could, in the short term, volunteer to move forward with those plans and benefit the living in the long term by taking that short term leap to the next world to benefit the needs and current financial benefit of the living. By increasing the level of the dieing the living would prosper.
The stock market would rise because of this flury of consumer spending on the dead by the living. Jobs would be created for taking care of the needs of the dead even though the dead don’t have needs. The living would spend lavishly on the dead because then they would be relieved they hadn’t died and they wouldn’t feel bad for the dead because they had gotten the dead everything they would need for their journey to a place where they probably don’t have any needs and a lot more shovels would be sold.
I will have to discuss this with my famous economist cohorts and fellow mini-economists to see if I am onto something. Hopefully they are still alive so they can help me formulate these economic theories on how to keep the living prosperous taking care of the needs of the dead who really don’t seem to have needs.
Is this some sort of scheme we, as fellow human beings, have created or is this sound commercial business practice.
For now J.P. Woodcock out.
A Curious Thought
It’s odd to awake each morning as the same J. P. Woodcock. Sleep and dreams are such exotic affairs you might think that on just one of these mornings J. P. (that would be me) would awaken to a whole new sense of sensibilities. I might awaken as a Sultan for just one morning or maybe a high wire acrobat. I would find myself in such new circumstances I might be able to lose my old crusty personality for at least one day and see the world as a ship captain or as a guy who changes tires.
Yet, as mathematically impossible as it is, I awaken each morning as Mr. J.P. Woodcock, the Lord of my Domain. Yes J.P. Woodcock is king of all that he can see. Purveyor of the infinite as long as you can fit the infinite within the walls of my office. For you see I am a micro-economist and my wind wanders in the morning as I awake..
But back to science. Doesn’t it seem likely that a man could go into sleep as his same old self and after years and years of being that same person with the same temperament and the same thoughts it seems more than reasonable that you could awake from a series of entertaining dreams and find yourself being a different person.
An aviator would be nice. You could fly among the clouds in a small plane searching for new adventures in Africa or setting speed and endurance records crossing the Pacifac Ocean.
J.P. Woodcock would like to announce to the world that this idea of transformation should be studied by the world’s greatest minds. These minds should come together in my apartment and we should all drift off into dreams and more universal thoughts. As we awoke in the morning scientists would be watching us and prodding us into new personality paradigms and our transformation would be completed under strict supervision.
I am not recommending a complete shift into a new personality. I am merely suggesting that we be able to jump out of our lives 2 or 3 times a year to liven up this dull routine of being the same J.P. Woodcock day in and day out.
I began to have these considerations as a child and as I became a teenager I truly would spend hours wanting to transform myself a few times to change into some one else who might be more fun than the former Mr. J.P. Woodcock Jr.
Think about it. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday you are the same old J.P. whose problems have problems and then on Wednesday night you go to sleep and Thursday you wake up as P.J. Brownstone and you have to spend the next few days sorting through P.J.’s thoughts and by the time you are tired of being P.J. you wake up Saturday morning as a refreshed J.P. Woodcock. Tanned and rested to enjoy your weekend.
And don’t start thinking Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde. Those conditions are terrifying to Mr. J.P. Woodcock. No siree. I am not talking about any Victorian psychology. No, I am speaking of pure entertainment for the soul.
Sincerely, though, it’s hard to believe that this event has not taken place before. Think of it. All of the people on the planet going to sleep at night and not one of them awakens as some one else. What are the chances of this my dear friend.
Over and under,
J.P. Woodcock
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)