Common Sense

"Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common-sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring. Sometimes we are inclined to class those who are once and a half witted with the half-witted, because we appreciate only a third part of their wit. Some would find fault with the morning-red, if they ever got up early enough. 'They pretend,' as I hear, 'that the verses of Kabir have four different sense - illusion, spirit, intellect, and the exoteric doctrine of the Vedas;' but in this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man's writing admit of more than one interpretation. While England endeavours to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?"

I'm used to hearing people say that I've no common sense and, to tell you the truth, I'm glad when I hear something like that. What good is common sense when that which is common is nothing more than the petty doings of society? Would you be insulted if I compared your sense to that of ants - how much one can carry upon one's back at a single time, what time to be home everyday, and how much is needed to take care of one's queen - and adulated it? In what instance is this different from comparing my sense to that of what society deems as common or normal? What variables are different? What do I care of the way culture makes itself important and the ways in which its laws and systems oppress those who know of no other way of life?

Perhaps you wish to see me asleep like the rest? Perhaps you wish to see me allow myself to slide in easily to a life where I can be taken care of for the price of my freedom and thought?

How is it sufficient in a culture to be like your neighbor, who is acting like his neighbor and his neighbor in turn? Is it not stagnant to worship the same God in the same way; to strive toward the same goal in the same way; to learn with one another at the same place, same time, and in the same way everyday; does this not cause disease in a dammed brook - uncleanness? Are we to also express ourselves in the similar manner?

We didn't come here to rock
We only came to disappoint you
Cause deep down in your cunt
That's exactly what you wanted us to do

You wanted us to lead you on
You wanted us to bum you out
So you could build us up
And you could knock us down

If that's what gets your dick hard
Telling people they're bad at making art

You wanted to feel cheated
I guess we gave you what you needed
So you're welcome
Don't worry about it

Just stay on the couch
Judge whatever people do
Don't do anything for yourself
I'd hate to see it happen to you

If that's what gets your dick hard
Telling people they're bad at making art
Feeling just like you're the one in charge
Pissing on my most pathetic parts

- "We Didn't Come Here To Rock", Andrew Jackson Jihad

To what advantage is it to strive to "succeed"? What is the haste to comply to a dress code and further the interests of the country, the government, or millionaires and their businesses? Is it really necessary to accept the fact that, in order to survive, one has to compete ruthlessly with one's brother and, while at family dinner, suppress one's contempt with a cheesy smile? Are we to value each other by a pecuniary worth? Are our interactions nothing more but calculations between competing companies - as a beekeeper studies his bees?

"Para todos todo, para nosotros nada."
"For everyone, everything, for us, nothing", Capitalism and the interests of America be damned.

I don't want "common sense", I don't want "sense", I want life.

"If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?"

Your friend
Alex