As it is - No. 5.
By Terry Miles. 

(Note: A reading should roll on in a relentless way with a minimal pause after each full-stop. The piece should be read quite flatly whilst still letting the rhythm of the language shine through. Think of it as a rant!)

As it is No 5.

As it is it is all in a plan, a programme for the future. Here it is then, all we have in the world, the present, the eternal present. The here and now, the all, in all we have - the now. "Has it been this way all along?" you ask. Time is here only because we can measure it. Of course we talk about geological time. Yes, there was nobody to measure it for the most part. We can be inconsistent to a point. We are here; we make the rules. Some are positive, some negative; some are right, some, wrong. Within a consensus of opinion, some we intend to profit by, and some we burden ourselves with. We are the self-invited guests; we hold on to past shadows, echoes of life. Yes, we hold on to the past, and let it go only with reluctance. After which we look to the future, it evades us like eternity. We risk all we have on cheap speculations, and spirits of a golden age, idols of fortune. There are bears and bulls, and peaks, and double peaks, there, in the charts, and in the alps too, but who walks there, the shaman is dead, the crystal ball is cloudy, cloudy as a Manchester sky. The rain in Spain, take it or leave it, there is nothing an Englishman likes better than the weather. Volcanoes, and continental drifts, you can keep them. Just look what a shower can do! Talk about a downpour, or a down-'n-out singing in the rain. Don't just talk about it, do something. Start a choir. That's what it is all about, diversity, adversity. Where on earth, or anywhere else, would we be without the need to do something? We can go to the moon, but we can't solve the little problematic things in life, like how to live as neighbours. Sure we need motives, the carrot, yes the golden carrot. Ah, but the stick, the stick to beat the hostage to fortune with. Good fortune, the carrot has gone. All good things come to an end. Only the stick remains, the stick that broke the endurance test of all time, the will. Will the will remain? Even decaying matter has a will of its own - a weakening one that is up against a greater force, microbes in a quantity no man can count. They're multiplying all the time. Just think about it. Half way through the count and those counted have already doubled in quantity. It's not the teller's fault that the numbers are all wrong. Waving the stick won't get you anything but a false confession. Threats are futile in the big scheme of things. Pointing the stick behind you won't get you anywhere; you have just been there. Point it to the earth, draw a plan in the dust; it's a reminder of what 'hearsay' says lies ahead is pure speculation. Dust to dust. The dreamers land is there, O.K., where greener grows the greener grass, and dark holes disappear from view. Paradise is not there, though they say it lies just beyond the horizon. There is always a horizon, another hill to climb. We can just imagine what is beyond the hill. What is beyond the last hill is beyond our grasp. Sure it's not beyond our imagination - that is where the trick lies. True, as I am standing here. Belief is where the truth lies. At the end of the road it is opinions that count, particular perspectives - grasp one that sounds right. Play with it to the right tune. Is there a right tune? Sometimes, sometimes not! After all it is only an opinion, and opinions abound, of how it will just be, just like that - the here and now, the link between history, and how we got here, and speculation, of how it could be, if only. If only. 'Is it all we have?' you ask. With our opinions, our likes and dislikes, our senses, our taste and imagination, our relationships, our desires, and our faculty of reason. What more do you want? Ah yes, the authority father figure, in whatever language, so comforting - until the trains start running on time and your neighbours start to disappear. Yes, I know, they're on the trains, but they didn't buy the tickets. It was all part of the plan, the final solution - the plan to beat all plans. Dust to dust. The road to the Promised Land is elsewhere. Take another route. At the crossroad, look right, look left, and cross the road, b

ut whatever you do avoid the cul-de-sacs. Thesis, to anti-thesis - anti-thesis to synthesis - synthesis to thesis, there and back again - with a stir in there, somewhere. 'It's all a matter of taste' said Nietzsche. As for Marx, he should have read Hegel more closely, understanding it is getting it right, anything less is an opinion, and we all have those, they are plentiful as leaves on a tree; come the fall and they all blow away. Oh the bareness of it all. At last, we can start counting again - a transition at every stage. Revolution against the revolution against the revolution etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That is, just give it another stir. Good recipe, don't you think? From Czar to commissar. State of flux don't you know? Just when you thought everything was settled, the Final solution, the perfect state. The individual's interests are always at odds with that of the state, recognise it, accommodate that dichotomy, and you're on to a winner! Winner takes all, and you're back to square one, all the world over, to the four corners of the globe. Who said that? Did Hegel? Listen, are there any Marxists left? Be a fellow traveller. We can all demonstrate on the Circle Line, here in London, at any road. It's an ongoing thing. Followers of fashion, we all do it from time to time, enabling others to take advantage of things to come. It's uman nature, all right, at both ends of the sticky stick! Resentments are justified. Let them eat cake. You can lose your head for a misunderstanding, or by being bloody-minded.

2001.12.
Copyright 2001 by Terry Miles.