What is the soul of seeking?

In its heart of hearts, what is the seeker?

What is the act of seeking in relation to the one who seeks and that which is sought?

The Nondescript Citizens project began in 1999 and ended at some point in 2000. Fortunately, some materials survived.

Visit NondescriptCitizens.com to download “Community Agenda” in its entirety or check out The Proletariat Dream for the only pre-Operator Speaking spoken word which I recall performing (taped telephone calls should not count).

This is how I start thinking after missing a few nights’ sleep.

Surrounding asbestos once was wood
Intentions perhaps counterpoising those noble and good
A drunk tackles his woman in the street
Conclusion: “Fuck this neighborhood”

Managed not to write anything for the past week, waiting for the hammer to come down with the thugged-out highschool dropouts who jumped me last weekend. Between the ASP baton I picked up and my CRKT M16-03, I figure it will be interesting to see what happens. (There are more interesting things in my arsenal, but I’m not about to wield them while drinking)

So I’m sitting around, it’s 01:20 on a Sunday, I’m bolstering my defenses against rampant paranoia with some liquid courage while I admire the quatrains of Omar Khayyam (and those who would dare attempt his style), and I find it is time to smoke a cigarette.

I am outside for thirty seconds before Crystal and her Guardian/Assailant are walking by.

Guardian/Assailant is pleading with Crystal that she stop and reconsider something. (Every other word out of his mouth is her name, it’s far from endearing, even to the ear of a casual eavesdropper)

Crystal keeps walking.

Guardian/Assailant speeds, preparing to take down Crystal in the middle of the street (while she is crossing it to get away from him). He has earned the title of Assailant - what kind of man tackles a woman in the street?

Crystal, swinging her purse just a moment before, eats pavement. (At this point it’s obvious that they are romantically involved - she would have had something to say about this street-tackle-maneuver if she did not know him)

Guardian/Assailant positions himself over Crystal, effectively preventing her from breaking free. Breaking free would be a Good Idea, given that they’re on the street and only drunks are out driving at this hour and there is a fair likelihood of pedestrian casualty if they remain in the road much longer.

Crystal lies there.

At this point, I am considering extinguishing my cigarette. I have my knife in hand. It really looks as though Crystal needs to get out of the street. Guardian/Assailant’s goals be damned.

A female voice calls out: “DO YOU WANT ME TO CALL THE POLICE?” (My crisis of conscience is averted)

“Well, that’s a refreshing thought… in 30 minutes, they’ll have this all sorted out.” I think to myself (I’ve seen them in action recently - if you order a pizza on one line while calling in an assault on the other, you’ll be eating pizza when the police officer arrives to inquire about what became of that assault you were so excited about not so long ago).

Police do not solve problems. Police act as a dressing for the wound, something to soak up the blood and misery, reposition the event as inevitable, and name the criminals and the victims. They do not protect, they rarely intervene in serious matters - they clean up (and file ever-so-important paperwork).

Regardless, Guardian/Assailant lets Crystal up when he hears mention of police.

Crystal resumes walking away. She is stumbling more quickly, now.

Guardian/Assailant maintains pursuit and volume: If anyone did not already know the name of Guardian/Assailant’s VIP/Victim, it’s “Crystal”, “Crystal”, “Crystal”.

Whatever happened when they made it up the block, I will never know.

I do, however, know that I finished my cigarette…

… just in time to see a beige Jeep speeding back down the block, Guardian/Assailant in pursuit on foot.

“Crystal, no! No, Crystal, NO! DON’T DO THIS!”

He ran after the Jeep as fast as he could, for as long as he could.

Guardian/Assailant has earned the title of Guardian - he’s drunk, he knows it, and he knows Crystal is just as badly inebriated. He had good intentions (at least insofar as preventing her from putting a key in the ignition was a concern).

A concerned citizen would have done more than watch the drama unfold, but I am of the opinion that one cannot save people from themselves…

… and there are far more pressing matters.

Omar Khayyam and his rubaiyat, for example.

Apologies if this post features poor grammar, word choice, or spelling. I just got mugged by a couple thugs down by the 7-11.

What happened?

I was walking up to the local 7-11 at around 1:10 AM. Some guy was yelling “Hey, your sister is hot” at a couple walking down the block. I figured “Hey, we’ve got a qualified douchebag on the premises here!” as I approached the beer depot.

Turns out that I end up face-to-face with the guy who was doing the yelling as I approach my late-night repository of all things alcoholic.

“You got any white?” asks the 6′3″ 250-some pound douchebag.

“You know, yeah-o…”

“No.”

I proceed into the store, the clerk asks me if I’m in to pick up my night cap, and I say “yup” - my singular goal was to acquire a beer so I could return to chatting with friends and browsing the internet in peace.

My purchase is paid for with a few quick swipes and prods at the payment console, I put the beers in my bag, wish the clerk a good evening, and head out.

Guess who is waiting for me in the parking lot? It’s that chubby fucker that was yelling at an unattainable woman and asking me for narcotics a moment ago.

His friend, equally stocky though hanging back in the shadows, is not far off.

Chubby starts walking towards me too quickly as I near the gas pumps.

“What’s in your backpack?” says Chubby.

“Nothing.”

“No, what’s in it?” Chubby says, moving into my personal space with a quickening stride.

“What the hell?” I say, thinking for a moment that I had left the house after dark without a knife. Doing so was foolish, though I have never had occasion to draw my blade in the past.

Chubby grabs me, throws me up against the gas pump. My face hits it with a satisfying “thud”.

I spin around and Chubby is putting up his dukes like he anticipates a brawl. There are two problems with this: (a) I am not going to get into a fight with a guy who is twice my size over my own property and (b) I know that his buddy isn’t far off.

I waste a moment turning to look at the entrance to the 7-11. This is exactly one moment too long. Chubby’s buddy charges from the shadows and pushes me to the ground while clutching at my backpack.

(What Chubby and his buddy do not understand is that I’ve got some expensive electronics in my bag, in addition to the beer, and there is a great deal of sentimental value attached to them - not to mention confidential business data. I would fight to the death for the contents of my backpack or my wallet, and this is why I will ensure that lethal force accompanies me wherever I go in the future)

I hit the ground hard. My right arm is still a throbbing mess, though none of the asphalt (thankfully) managed to embed itself in my flesh as it will tend to do.

Regaining a sprinter’s position, I made it back to the store.

I am not embarrassed to admit that I ran from a situation that was heavily stacked against me, though I am still shaking with shock, anger, and the “would-have-been” moments that accompany my recollection. These drunk fuckers would be bleeding and/or dead right now if I had maintained my personal security policy.

Back in the store, I see the assailants flee across the street while the store clerk asks me what happened.

I briefly relay that “those guys in the parking lot tried to jump me”.

“What the hell?” he says (and I make a note to tell him that that is exactly what I said). “I can’t call the cops, I didn’t see it happen and it wasn’t here in the store.”

“But I can call the cops…” I say, though at this point I really don’t want to be talking to cops - I just want to be “safe” (whatever that means - I’m not feeling like my present accommodations are exactly secure at the moment).

The clerk tells me that I’m cool to stick around the store for a while, and that I should call a taxi.

I hang out for a while.

The clerk and I go out for a smoke. He attempts to school me on self-defense, at which point I remind him that I’m slightly inebriated and I’m much smaller than either of the guys who attacked me (one guy, I would’ve taken my chances - two big guys is a little much).

After staring off in the direction that the attackers fled for a minute or two, I elect to get home under my own power. Quickly.

By the time I am home, my right arm is more-or-less immobilized with pain, my knees are jelly, and I’m feeling what some might call an “adrenaline rush”.

So, tonight, I talked to a real-live operator. She wasn’t especially articulate, but she did get the police the correct information, because I got to talk to them as well.

This is the first time I have been properly jumped.

I have been held up at gunpoint, but that precludes being thrown about (it’s all about the gun, especially if you haven’t got one) and rarely ends badly if you surrender your dinero muy rapido.

To Chubby and pals: I am thinking about carrying around some Abrin or Ricin, now. Just for you. (and possibly to make a buck or two)

I’ll sell it to you as “yeah-o”.

Bitches.

A wise piece of general internet etiquette reads: “Do not feed the trolls.” One would do well to remember this…

… but what of the petty, manipulative people you meet in your everyday existence? What of the pathological liars, the drama queens, the shifty gossips, and the parasitic leeches who pass themselves off as salesmen?

I do not know the solution - how they may somehow help themselves - but I can say with absolute authority on this matter, to those affected by manipulative people: get them out of your life.

I was looking for a way to segue into an exposition on predatory sales and marketing tactics after reading What I Learned Buying a Rug in Turkey (still working on Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior - a book which categorizes emotional loopholes which rob people of rational thinking).

So, to preface the following, I present the lessons from the Turkish Rug Merchant (these guidelines are textbook-grade material for the manipulatively-minded):

• Reciprocation: we try to repay what another person has provided us
• Commitment and consistency: we desire to be consistent with what we have already done
• Social proof: we tend to rely on what other people are doing to determine our own actions
• Liking: we tend to go along with and follow people we like
• Authority: we feel a sense of duty to follow someone who has authority
• Scarcity: opportunities seem more valuable to us when their availability is limited

- Mitchell Weisburgh of PILOTed

Now, to the grist of the post…

Protecting the Guilty: The following text message conversation is provided with one omission. A name has been removed. If you were a party to this conversation, you can rest assured that no one else knows exactly who you are.

… but the clever ones may very well make educated guesses.

Background: Unnamed works in sales. (Or did, last time I checked)

Unnamed has been romantically involved with several people with whom I have had long acquaintance. For my part, I tried to be tolerant. I have had multiple discussions with those of my acquaintance regarding the negative influence Unnamed had upon their lives, especially following Unnamed’s “desperate cry for help”.

The event in question happened loudly, aggressively, and in perfect synchronization with Unnamed’s then-ex-boyfriend’s attempts at dating others. Apparently, Unnamed wanted him for her company still.

Unnamed’s ploy effectively brought her then-ex-boyfriend back to her side… it was clever enough, but we all know that one who truly intends to die does not call others to say “I’m going to kill myself now” before unleashing razors and pills.

Unnamed has gone on to interfere in my own romantic relationships, when she decided she would be “best friends” with my girlfriend at the time. The sheer volume of “let’s be friends” messages and calls seemed disproportionate, given that Unnamed had never spent much time getting to know her.

I knew this was coming sooner or later, I just did not expect it to be so virulent…

Unnamed is a reasonably attractive woman (though, borrowing from Frank Zappa, “What’s the ugliest part of your body?“).

Her “damsel in distress” ambush would work on most any male who did not have some concept of her past exploits and the damage she has wrought in others’ lives… and she knows this. This act was her trump card.

Unnamed and those like her are gangrenous limbs: they must be amputated from society before they infect others.

Deal with the manipulative people in your life. Dispense with the bad blood in your family, the ones who use their filial ties as part of a guilt trip. Create as much physical space as possible (you know, before the Earth’s curvature works to your disadvantage and you start getting closer again). Leave no forwarding address. Change your phone number. I know I will.

Any manipulator who has his or her act together has a good shot at politics, and it is likely that people whose moral compass is skewed in the way Unnamed demonstrates are already running this show.

Manipulative people have taken the time and effort to learn how to deal with those around them. Learn to recognize manipulation and defend yourself.

At some point in time in history it was possible for one man to know everything that the human race itself knew - one man may have been able, over the course of his life, to read everything ever written by humanity.

Now, with the advent of numerous languages and innumerable writers, it is simply impossible for a single human being to read at a even the most accelerated of human capabilities the entire collection of human writings. Doubtless, most hold little to no value to a contemporary human, (aside from curiosity, perhaps the voyeuristic pleasure of diaries, letters, notes, shopping lists, memos, et cetera).

I mourn the passing of the era of the sage or shaman - it has given way to this specious era of specialists, consultants, and researchers whose myopic gaze rests only on the perpetuation of the knowledge they deem fit. Knowledge which, by and large, disproportionately enriches a select few before benefiting the community (should it do so at all).

- Six years ago

Acquiring specialized knowledge has changed my attitudes significantly.

There is an existential force which exceeds the sensory possibilities of day-to-day reality and the limits of imagined perception.

You never get back to your past - half deja vu, half future shock - rekindles dead memories and ideas - resurrects and violently awakens a dead self - perhaps I really have been trapped here all these years - am I overwriting what I’ve become with an older copy?

I haven’t become anything, nothing more than a shade haunting a solipsist amalgam of memorized footpaths amidst an increasingly real location (for the corporeal) - the two combine and it’s a mental wasteland - only bits and pieces of the mundane realities of this place remain - the people are all gone - some facts remain - some facts may be token souvenirs and mementos - some facts may be memoirs and intimate correspondence - most facts are broken promises and liquor bottles - rusted metal facts.

Demand tracers, lost in the dark or increasingly blurred vision - food is all I want now: ephemeral sensations to take me further - back down this memory pit - maybe that’s a one-way ticket - maybe I’ve got to go it alone - maybe that’s why, somehow - this was a known possibility - maybe that’s why - I haven’t set foot in this place for so many years - maybe I go it alone and I’m no longer anything I’d be able to ID anyway - maybe we all come back that way.

Note: Atypical character set ends - synch with standard encoding.

I believe my head is clearing up - far fewer violent thoughts - more introspection.

Note: Entry continues - it is immediately apparent that
the communication channel of interest has closed.

Slept for thirty hours, woke, found myself very hungry and very angry.