story of my life

for your consideration...

i think this is a pretty interesting article that conflicts interestingly with this whole line of thinking i've been doing about alienation, labor exploitation under capitalism, greed, excess, money...for me, this makes me want to think more about the language i'm using to describe the system and where i'm placing (or depriving) people of agency/desire to do good. (what is the desire to "do good?") anyway. i'd love to hear your thoughts.

whole text is at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/2007/02/army-of-altruists.html

"Army of Altruists: On the alienated right to do good
By David Graeber
Harper's Magazine 2007

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. -- Senator John Kerry (Democrat, Massachusetts)

Kerry owes an apology to the many thousands of Americans serving in Iraq, who answered their country's call because they are patriots and not because of any deficiencies in their education. -- Senator John McCain (Republican, Arizona)"

(continue reading here)

from the warm&quiet isolation of the regenstein,
elz

fuck all states

i cant, i wont, i dont have time. im supposed to be writing, or thinking, or sleeping, or buying a plane ticket to singapore, or dancing,  or or orrr or

my visa expires in six weeks. i dont want to leave. i have to leave and spendspend spend sending my money to jetairways or kingfisher so they can buy petrol and shoot me over to the land of fast bureaucracy where visas are fast and plentiful, 

if i can

if they allow foreigners to put their life and lineage and intentions on a PDF and pay $150 and get a stamp in a book and get punted back across the bay, sea, ocean to the land of slow bureaucracy and classical dance festivals and trains to the mountains

at this point it's just cheaper to come home in six weeks

fuck everything

i have a 10 page paper due about ________ by sunday morning (it's friday night). i have one paragraph written. all my friends are leaving tomorrow by 7pm. alex and chloe are ready to go, samantha never wants to leave, hannah is going to delhi to meet her parents and "do" rajasthan. i'll see her in chennai later. then pondicherry, ooty, and back to delhi? names names names and places i've seen so many places. im writing about temples... when they are sacred and when they are not. ive been in 9 active temples, 9 places of ambiguous or informal worship, and 18 abandoned temples. if there is no image in the center shrine, and if the image is not bathed and fed and adorned daily by a brahmin, there is no normatively sacred space but i still take my shoes off and stay quiet like a museum. why are ruins museums? 

hannah has returned to use her computer

now my room is hoppin

life is complicated

i hate a lot of things

but am confused and feeling so many thingswordswordswordsss