#WeAreTheTimeFeelers

[leonrochamusic]

Sunday Morning Paper August 12th, 2020

"Guerilla Radio" and "Killing in the Name Of" by Rage Against the Machine started playing in my head at various parts throughout the writing of this poem. I thought that was noteworthy.

[leonrochamusic]

Concrete River Threshold August 5th, 2020

Fear of the unknown is pre-programmed into us in order to ensure our survival. Curiosity insists on my prodding the electrical outlet, cartoons have shown me the comedic aspects of a sudden jolt of electricity, and personal experience has shown me that my body reacts just like everyone else's when so much energy surges through me. 

Collectively, humanity thinks it is stronger than that fear of the unknown, because we are programmed from day 1 to believe there are winners, and there are losers; to concentrate only on the conquest, not the actual rewards. 

We are all in this together as one voice, and the sooner we realize that you are not in the shadow of a mountain, you are at the "concrete river threshold"; it is not a wall, but a way.

[leonrochamusic]

Patience

August 11th, 2020

I find myself needing reminders to breathe, let in the necessary and out the un. We have sped-up so much that, when asked to breathe, like taking a side-road after a long road-trip, going 35 feels tortugan. What have we missed in those moments we ran by without seeing with all of our senses? What memories are we holding onto for fear that nothing better will ever come? You will never know unless you breathe, be, and live now, like the turtle, at a pace that seems so slow to all, but is perfect for the creature you were always meant to be.

[leonrochamusic]

Blips On The Radar Infinite August 18th, 2020 I remember the sweet sounds of the modem dialing up, the connection to the virtual rooms where chatting about what life would be like if we evolved from say, reptiles instead of apes, midnight musings rambling towards morning meditations leading to evening revelations of a metaphysical sort, and the knowledge that everything will be alright. One day our sun will cease being as it is now, and we will have long ceased being what we are now, so what is the problem in knowing that everything will be alright? Those that make it past the lines of famine, disease, civil-unrest, revolt, revolution, war, disease, rinse, repeat, seemingly endlessly population crashing events, what will they leave behind? Did we not have a massive flue pandemic just an 100 years since? Let's try to leave a better piece of this cosmic puzzle than we got, because we are so much closer than we are apart, and we can create new potential futures that will forever make these decades blips on the radar infinite.

[leonrochamusic]

Love is Free August 16th, 2020 I am reminded this morning that we all have a right to mourn the loss of a loved one. It doesn't matter what you believe, who you vote for, what religious institution holds the ropes on your yoke, but losing a brother is a heartbreaking moment. Humans have to grieve, and it is not on us to judge someones healing process.  

Now, if that healing process somehow prevents another human from life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, well, that is a different story. Let's allow those that don't allow us to mourn freely, because we can only start from inside, that change we so desperately need. That change to love our neighbors, not hate them because someone is convinced they know better. Love, it's free, so why do we hoard it?

[leonrochamusic]

Digital Mines August 13th, 2020 I was talking to a friend this morning about the various proverbial logs I have burning in the fire, and he recommended the Hathi Trust Digital collection as a resource, and well, babel.hathitrust.org had me seeing rusted pillars hanging above head in an old mine, so here is this little bit of mental gymnastics I played around with today! 

What is a miner if not someone that travels through our planets veins and siphons the jewels and gems for reasons not yet fully understood? Like, y'all, would someone two hundred years from now know what to do with a CD if there were no more CD players? It would sure make a lovely frisbee, though. 

[leonrochamusic]

We tend to not look up. Recently, it seems like everything is trying to keep our eyes away from the skies and into the digital seas of interconnectivity. Yes, when used as a toy, or a means to distract, the supercomputers in our pockets can be and are harmful. But like any good tool, it is in its intent that one can enjoy the benefits of modern technology. Viewing the TV, internet, all of the entirety of "the cloud" as a tool for mental growth, now that is something wholly unique to our particular point in space/time.

Use the tools that are free and at your disposal. Ever wondered if you were good at baking? Or painting? Or writing? Stop wondering and start creating. The internet is a tool for you to grow, you are not the tool for the internet to grow.

[leonrochamusic]

Burnt Tongue August 7th, 2020 Perspectives are something we should strive in our day to day life to gain more of. In having as many as possible, the picture gets much clearer, the colors finally adapting for your particular lot cast from the genetic pool. It falls on us to know our pasts, our peoples plights and why we have a tongue so common it can be contained with ease.

What language would you want to learn? What history has been kept from you? As my choir conductor was wont to say "The squeaky wheel gets the grease", so SQUEAK! Scream! Shout! Proclaim your ignorance out loud for all to hear and think, "shit, I don't know about that either."

How else are we going to learn from one another?

Can you tell I burnt my tongue this morning?

[leonrochamusic]

Homecoming August 4th, 2020 Some people have bad handwriting.Typing is an easier method of expression, a relatively acceptable replacement for handwriting, it is. We scribble notes on pieces of paper from time time, sign us, and sign dollars, pass it on as the memory of those monies fade away from the nothingness they were when they first populated your digital displayed savings; your life compressed into blips of data that can so easily take control of your life. When was the last time you picked up a pencil and wrote? Or doodled? Or just twirled it around in hopes that Looney-Toon physics were applied and you propelled away? There is no doubt that typing has made it easier for us to communicate, and the ease with which I will be sharing this thought with y'all is testament to that, but let's try to keep writing alive. Journal, scribble, doodle, put pen to paper if you can, but if you can't, then write with your mind.

Writing is so much more than just pen on paper, so much more than a "digital track" for your "crystallized data". Y'all, we have phones, speech to text some thoughts, or voice memo, just let your voice be heard, because there is no other like yours, and ours together make something new. We should all tend to those saplings.

[leonrochamusic]

Let’s take it with us August 3rd, 2020

We might feel like our backs are about to break, the weight of our whole worlds seemingly compressing our souls to nothing. It isn't a fight, it isn't even a process the way we consider one. It has all happened and is happening and will happen all at once, you've already made it past that roadblock, because it was actually a step in the direction you are going in. The journey is our mystery, because the physical destinations are already set. So dance, laugh, scream, love, create, revel in the mysteries of thought that spring from those unending wells of pure potential.

[leonrochamusic]

Dig Between the Lines August 1st, 2020

[leonrochamusic]

Stars on a Sheet 7/31/2020

[leonrochamusic]

Prosperity is not Printed August 19th, 2020 We often forget that money is a construct. Someone feels they have the right to charge hundreds of dollars for medication that costs cents to synthesize, and we fall right into place thinking "well, sure, that seems fine". Inch by inch, we are "okay" with children being separated from their families. Inch by inch, we are "okay" with wealthy politicians knowingly corrupting the bodies and minds of our future. Inch by inch, we have allowed ourselves to be stripped away of humanity, art, independent thought, so that the bigger the dollar sign, the more right someone has over someone else. This is my reminder that we have not given up. This is my reminder that we have work to do. Every song, every poem, every piece of art, every meme, every memory posted, every bit of us that bleeds onto this digi-scape sprouts new ideas that will have us forgetting why we ever thought any one person had it right. We are the Time Feelers, and as the page turns, we might feel the pressure of the paper buckling under the weight of the words, but it will soon be flat enough to begin the chapter anew.

[leonrochamusic]

Metallurgical Progression August 17th, 2020 I will live to see some amazing technological advancements. 

[leonrochamusic]

Pandora 8/2/2020 The music we hear has a direct affect on how we perceive the world around us. It is wholly possible that humanity, in its collective wisdom, has begun to unpack the instruction manual that was left for us in our DNA, in our memetic behaviours passed on through a non-physically understandable process, and we are seeing that the majority of us were booted-up using the wrong programs. We struggle moment to moment, trying to make sense of the damage forced upon us since our emergence from the breach onto this mortal coil. *Start rant* Do y'all know that Occam (famous for his brand of razors) was so convinced that miracles did indeed happen on our plane, that his hand in the creation of the Law of Parsimony was used to justify the statement "God's existence cannot be deduced by reason alone" (Gibbs 1997)? This is diametrically opposed to how the term "Occam's Razor" is used today. The dude wanted to find evidence of God in science and landed on "the simplest solution is probably the right one" in regards to say, the Virgin Birth, or someone’s molars getting miraculously filled in with gold (I may have been a member of a cult growing up, more on that in a later post), but instead his name is associated with purity in logic and reasoning. *End rant* We are raised with mass media influencing what we eat, wear, our standards for beauty, our metrics for success. We are raised to believe that after a certain time, your voice is no longer an integral part of the fabric of daily human existence. Who benefits the most from a 40 year old mother of two strong, healthy members of the American consumerist workforce, feeling that she needs to conform to societies norms of beauty, intelligence? That she is "past her prime" and should be content with living with those empty-nest feels? I heard this once as the metric for a good society: when the old are happily planting trees, the shade of which they know they will never get cooled by. Where then, are all the saplings?