A Current of Ennui and Ambivalence.

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“All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.” 
― Noam Chomsky

Do you ever have the impression that you are the subject of a brainless battering ram?
Undoubtedly, we occupy a society of extreme consumerism with sports as the underpinning of an unspoken religion that seeps into nationalism, empire building and faddish up-selling being sold as necessities. The era of the underground culture once ripe in the 1960's was conquered, by these same forces, in order to make it a commodity easily defined, with recognizable attributes, which always reminded me of the domestication of wild bores, now waiting to be sheared. I was reading an essay on the opening of graves, a sort of scientific desecration of human values. Artifacts and personal items taken to be viewed as if they had no valuation other than to compile some sort of abstract list that would lead us to understand our forebears, as if materialism was a form of mediumship. It may not tell us much as to the mindsets of those who arrived here before us but  it says a great deal about our own society in the objectification of humanity. I think all of the above now applies, or so it seems to the anomalous that seems also to be reduced to brand names proffered by the brokers in mass communication.  All we seem to be missing is a laugh track.

“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on -- because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.” 
― Noam Chomsky

What is really galling to this writer is the lack of self doubt, the lack of recognition that this seems to be more of a commentary on our human environment than it does the equal and missing recognition that none of us really know much about anything that matters, so creativity is channeled into a proverbial force field of terms that have no meaning, no correlate to consciousness and it's strangeness and yet..the mills of reductionism and stereotype roll endlessly. What is produced is completely simplified, easy to understand tone deaf bullshit. We need a Noam Chomsky to do for the subject matter of the paranormal to reveal the manipulation of media. Pre-selected experts used to domesticate the subject matter to steer it into the safe harbors of fringe lunacy. Is it any wonder we have a sort of theory of relativity when it comes down to this subject matter inasmuch as everything but the kitchen sink is treated with the patina of respectability?
I beginning to suspect something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
I can only speak for my own observations but lately it seems the writing associated with, and the treatment of anomalous subject matter has reached a benchmark that is essentially a nadir of diminished content. I wrote and posted the short exercise of "Black Mountain" as a response to the environment of today in regard to the fact we have the freedom to write as we wish on subjects that cast a mirror on our own mysteries of existence ( as temporary as that is) and yet we have self imposed roadblocks of silently fierce resistance to go outside of our own comfort zones that results in ennui and ambivalence which strikes this writer as well.....striking. Why is this so? Is this a misreading resulting from an increased lack of ambition toward my own efforts?
 No man is an island as they say
This blog as well as it's predecessor, Intangible Materiality, has some 645 posts that began in that used anomalous phenomenon as a platform to explore issues beyond the confines of the events themselves, specifically consciousness, which at the time, was a theme no one had taken advantage of, which always struck me as ridiculously short sided. The two ends of the stick, the observer and the observed, the two sides of the same coin were separated in nearly every commentary as if the phenomenon had a life of it's own that bore no relation to those who witnessed or experienced it.
This was especially true when it came to the awful term of UFO as a phenomenon that was riddled with conspiracy theory, para-politics and comic book fantasies. It was packaged peddled and sold as entertainment. It still is.
Has any of this undergone a transformation of paradigms..remember when that term was all the rage?
The answer for most is the same as it was when this blog began, as if the subject matter was under the thrall of self suggestion or self comforting containers that have no linkage to either science or imaginative or creative ways of looking at the subject from new angles.
Two readers who have visited here in the past requested that the two extended essays that are posted below this one be re-posted. One looks at the UFO situation from a twist on exobiology. The other looks at the same subject from the purview of ghost phenomenon. One inspiration in this entertaining of oneself  by originating this blog was Mac Tonnies, now long since gone who also was a regular reader here. For a brief period of time I was hopeful that the subject would undergo a renaissance of creativity but perhaps not surprisingly ( in hindsight) this was not to be.
For a relatively brief period of time, I decided to participate in forums only to find myself in the midst of a comic book convention, full of self appointed experts with closed minds. So much for that.

Another apt quotation..

“Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.” 
― Noam Chomsky

Paul Kimball, who remains in the processing of a second UFO documentary, began to exhibit a great deal of ambivalence not so much toward the subject matter but to the  lunacy surrounding it. His blog was dismantled and he has largely faded away..he is now largely occupied with low budget independent film making. His views on art and spiritual matters in terms of a living universe have been largely ignored and he appears to be boxed in by the very marketplace he participated in as a "producer", which is to say the least, unfortunate.

Nick Redfern became the Stephen King of paranormal subject manner, as an investigator brought forth an astonishing number of books in a relatively short period of time, but I found myself dissuaded by more innuendo than cogency, although the work itself remains laudable as a matrix of factoid assembly that serves as the crust for more profound mysteries. Yet his venue is our society and as a creatively disruptive force, he uses the language of society to push it's buttons. He poses no real or imagined threat to the embellishment of mythos.

NIDS whom I had correspondence was disbanded...Rich Reynolds at UFO Iconoclast appears to be more more frustrated in his own way than hopeful in regard to the same issues of how others approach the subject, while promoting Roswell theory which seems to indicate a strong ambivalence in of itself  as to approach which could be worded as biding time by simple provocation hoping something interesting will appear in the net..but this was not to be. The question that seems to seep into my mind in consideration of this state of suspension asks "When does exploration fall into self parody?"  Does this self parody resemble another?
Art for art's sake? A sort of examination that becomes a facial tick, a rut that digests itself in diminishing nutritional content.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....” 
― Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

As many know the self labelled "Dream Team" to create a revisionist scenario for Roswell assembled by Kevin Randle to correct the errors of his previous output self destructed by means of it's own inability to avoid the limelight when it came to misfired attempts to corral what is a myth, largely resembling a homicide without any bodies so the kitchen sink was thrown at it covered with the patina of exaggerations...fade to grey.

The fascinating mix of John Keels intellect has yet to be replaced and sadly he died alone in poverty and became essentially a hermit in his later years which again, seems to underline the entire thread that holds this post together. If you do not want to play the game in a manner that upends the security of channeled sheep, then be prepared to pay for it. Or have nothing with which to fend for oneself in terms of how we define profitable undertakings, and yet in the trade of intellectual curiosity, he produced the focus of strangeness into our daily affairs on a philosophic level akin to Robert Anton Wilson. What did he receive in return, to be buried ( Like Wilson) under the rubbish heap of recycled hubris.

So here in its proper context is my survey of 'The Black Mountain" of ennui and ambivalence..

You have your freedom, now what? The incommensurable gift of a entire living universe is in our care here, not there and there is either freedom or no freedom at all to do as we determine here. No extraterrestrial nor God nor the get out of jail free card offered by religion will suffice in the place of humility. Blood in on our hands and in freedom there is no punishment or reward in this. Respect for life versus denial and no other worldly detective can force a confession. A beautifully horrific mountain to clamber upon and these cleats are our own creations..pushing against the pull of gravity of our animal inheritance as predators, of this world and others, even the next that awaits us. We sit encamped at the edge of the universe and think on these things and every second is counted either as an embrace or a revulsion toward our freedom as mountain climbers who are also poor swimmers. We cannot dwell here. We must move on, one of us suggests not having any indication of what lies ahead. Even the most microscopic lint in our shoes contains this fabric of a landscape, far from any point in claiming refugee status when we came to this point willingly despite our claims that attest otherwise. Frozen bodies are strewn up the mountainside awaiting what we know not inasmuch they were and are us, no one else. Some were murdered, some starved to death, some lost their balance, some became lost all in the name of freedom. We pay dearly for this experiment of freedom but what is the alternative? What would we have extraterrestrials or the Gods do? Freeze us in the amber of a perfect summer day whose eternity is the void? You tell me, he said. I know no more than they and they no more than me as to the summit which could be a beginning to the end or the end of this beginning in suspension, measured by the crunch of our shoes on the ice sheets. Freedom and frost bite clings to us. To know what those flickering lights are that dance further upward on the crevasse, what do they portend?
Strange dreams cocooned in sleep await us tonight, perhaps that is their reflected light we see above us along the escarpment....One of us mentioned motility, the various stages in freedom of movement in evolution as one that expands space as we traverse it. Another.. said everything must be paid for either willingly or be prepared to have our pockets picked.  A smile of recognition spread among us, nothing further was said.