__________________________________________________ / / / The Eternity Articles / / / / Act I, Scene viii -- October 1995 / /_________________________________________________/ \ \ \ Who am I?: Sanjay Singh \ \ eternity@cyberspace.org \ \_________________________________________________\ "For a long time, I did not know who I was, I did not know what I wanted. I was crushed by peer pressure, and I listened to a lot of people because I was told by a lot of people around me that I was a moron. And now I've realized that it's not me that's fucked up. It is the rest of the world. I'm certainly not a genius but I believe I've found myself." [Peter Steele] Contents (it finally became necessary) ====================================== - Introduction - Why'd You Stop There? - The Dawning Of A New Era - Stuff I Didn't Write... - Welcome Aboard! [Salazar-Parsons Service] - Moses Was A Mystic [Tom Hennessy] - The Public Shelter [Jayne Loader] - Future Imperfect - Return to the Renaissance - Time Capsule [Greg Webster] - And On My Wall... [Paul Sheen] - It'll Never Happen... - Kids Say The Darndest Things... [Vashti Singh] - Stuff You Really Need To Know... - Disclaimer It's been a strange summer. Profoundly different than any other summer that has come before it. Every summer is a little different than all the others. I usually walk away a little older, and a little wiser. Even working at a scrap yard a couple of summers ago taught me a lot, certainly more than I expected it to. This summer has really been no different. I've learned my lessons, and I've learned them well. There was just one small difference this summer, that I can't remember having before. But instead of jumping straight in, let's just flash back for a moment (this is where the screen should fade into wavy lines, and then you should be looking at my past...) The past is a strange thing. Santayana taught us that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And maybe he was right. I always used to think that he was. No reason do doubt him, after all, he's published, so he should know what he's talking about, right? I never believed that wisdom was something empowering, if anything, I thought of it as a shield. Maybe that's why the quote list was started. I used to think that loneliness was the bane of humanity. Who would want to be alone. So all I had to do was to collect as many quotes that I could find, that reflected whatever I was thinking. I never chased after them, they just seemed to come to me. I'd be reading a book, or watching a movie, and a couple of lines would just start hovering above the rest of the text. No one else could see it. It was just a little secret that the book was sharing with me. No one heard it, but at that moment, the movie got a little louder, clearer. It seemed like a gift, so why knock it? And the collection started... and grew, and grew, and grew. Now things have changed. I've changed. Me now, is not the same me that entered the summer five months ago. Sure, parts of me are here, but something's different. Now the quotelist contains quotes that I find inspirational. Sure, there are still some quotes that I collect because they sound right. And I'll never pass by a line in a book that stands out and asks to be put in. Who am I to argue with a book? After all, they've been published. Like wisdom, the past was a shield too. Just waiting to be slung up against any adversary that presented itself. "Hey Sanjay, I've got this friend, I think you'd like her." "No, I can't." The reply was simple enough. Practised and practised until it was second nature. I was still living in a monogamous relationship that never really existed beyond friendship. And the friendship had even ended. But you have to stay faithful to the ones you love, so I did. I became terrified of the world. Not in a paranoid sense, but it was all foreign to me. I thought that there was darkness everywhere. There was a huge grey cloud in front of my face, and when I had it removed I was blinded by the light. So, naturally, I held one hand over my eyes, and used the other one to pull the blanket over my head. Reality was painful, I couldn't focus, I couldn't see straight, and I didn't want anything to do with it. Then slowly, very slowly, I got used to the light. It didn't seem as bright any more. So I got rid of the blanket and took my hand away from my eyes. I could see, and that was strange. But I still wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. Then something happened... Why'd You Stop There? ===================== "Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want." [Margaret Young] Ahh, feels much better doesn't it? I guess you wouldn't know. But at least I do feel better. Things got a bit rough back there last month, but I guess that I'm still here, so it could have been worse. So now the question is where do we go now? My soul is empty. My mind is clear, and as a friend alluded to, I am no longer playing the role of Atlas. I'm not starting from the beginning, but at least the score card has been wiped clean. I've confessed to all of my sins, and although I haven't been absolved of them, I don't think that the weight of them is about to crush me any more. Trust me, this is a good thing. So what caused this dramatic turn around? Just confessing couldn't have made that much of a difference, could it? Nope, at least I don't think so, but I had a couple of guides to lead me along the path that I should have been on. Or at least to drag me off the one I was on. I suppose the first thing I should credit with the turnaround should be myself. If you had asked me a year ago what my hobbies were, writing certainly wouldn't have been on the list. I've got the resume to prove that. If you told me that I'd be writing a ten page collection of observations and commentaries, I probably would have laughed in your face. But, then February rolled around, and this started. Who would have thought that it could turn into a fairly successful venture. It's been a strange learning experience, and I wouldn't trade it in, even if the only thing that I had learned from it was that I could do it. A lot of credit, recognition, and appreciation is directed to a new friend all the way over in Australia. Julian the Demon Killer. All he did was to tell me that I could fight the battle, and the consequences wouldn't matter. I didn't believe him until I tried it, but he was right. And finally, Julia Cameron. I just started "The Artist's Way" a couple of months ago, but it has had a huge effect on the way I see things now. If you haven't heard of it, it's supposed to be a twelve week workshop on 'discovering your creative self.' But it turned out to me much more than that. If ever there were to be a book that could follow the bible in terms of spiritual awakening, this would be it. All you need to remember is what Ms. Cameron says somewhere in the first section, "leap and the net will appear." What more could you ask for? The Dawning Of A New Era ======================== "... whether your name is Gehrig, or Ripken, DiMaggio, or Robinson, or that of some youngster who picks up his bat or puts on his glove, you are challenged by the game of baseball to do your very best, day in and day out, and that's all I've ever tried to do." [Cal Ripken Jr.] September 7, 1995 A new day and a new era. A lot has happened in the past twelve hours. Lou Gehrig now clings to one less record, and Baltimore's son, Cal Ripken Jr., has earned to have his names up in the Elysian Fields with the likes of Ruth, Cob, Gehrig, Jackson, Waddell, Sisler, Mantle, Gibson, and Foster. I watched last nights game. We were lucky enough that our sports channel was smart enough to pick up the feed from ESPN and show the game. Although the main focus of the night was on the Becker/McEnroe and Agassi/Korda matches, they flipped to the baseball game whenever something big was about to happen. Although, I'm not sure what would have happened if Agassi and Korda went to a fifth set. Now's not a great time to be a baseball fan. I missed all of the big things. I wasn't born for DiMaggio, and I was just a year and two days old when Fisk willed the ball just to the fair side of the foul pole in 75, just a little to young to know what was happening. The first World Series game that I tried to watch, was the day that the earthquake hit, it just wasn't meant to be. Last night all that changed though. I saw the big "1" drop over the "0" on that warehouse just past the right field fence. I saw the standing ovation. I saw the lap around the diamond. I saw it all, and I saw something else too. I saw that while he was running his victory lap, shaking everyone's hand, and even hugging a couple of fans. I saw that when he passed people, they'd call out to him, and he'd come back, and shake their hand. He didn't want anyone to feel that they had been left out. And no one did. I thought that no one deserves this record more than him. Maris' 61 home runs was a measure of power, brute force, and will that even have half the impact of this record? Probably not. You'll never see Bonds play all 162 games of a season, you won't see Griffey or Williams do it either. Gwynn deserves a chance to chase Hornsby's .424, and Maddux deserves a shot at Leonard's 1.00 season. Out of the two records that were never supposed to have fallen, we've seen one topple. And now there are two that will never be touched again. To the uninitiated, just two numbers, but to the fan 2131 and 56 will always have a special meaning. Ripken didn't do it for the fame, or the recognition. He already had that. He was already going to the Hall of Fame, and no one questioned that, you just knew that he'd get there. He didn't play 2130 to be Gehrig, and he didn't play 2131 to beat Gehrig. He played because that's what he does, and he did it with the highest respect, class, and dignity that befits a legend, new or old. Gehrig always lived and played in the shadow of Ruth, and for all the other Yankee fans that think that Ripken is a threat to Gehrig, or that he should have sat on the bench for game 2130, don't worry about it, Ripken will never let the sun go down on Gehrig. Both names will live on. With or without the strike, this is what baseball needed. Not a larger strike zone and certainly not another million dollar baby. Just another man of steel coming in to save the day. Ripken pick baseball up, and very carefully and quietly brought it back into the hands of the fans. That is what made it great, it was something that the fans were a part of. The dream that one day, that could be me. This is not a measure of skill, not a competition of averages and home runs. It's simply a labour of love and a measure of passion and endurance. Playing the game just for the sake of playing it. Not for the endorsement, the contracts or the glory. This was for the love of the game. It's a form of pride that you don't see that often any more. Do what you love, and love what you do. It's a work ethic that no one wants any more. Everyone's too busy trying to cover their asses, passing the bucks, and trying to find someone to blame if something goes wrong. Instead Ripken has shown us that we can try, we can go out on a limb and control our own destinies, and that maybe if we just do the job that we're paid to do, we can get the recognition that we're always complaining that we don't have. Thanks Cal, it meant a lot. Welcome Aboard! =============== [Ok, in order to inject a huge dose of reality into Eternity, I've managed to find something known as the Salazar-Parsons Service. It's the new form of news syndication. Each month, I'll be printing one or two of their articles. It all depends on how many I have, which ones I like, and if I think they'll fit in with the issue. It just started up, at the time of release, so the first article that I'll be printing for you, should appear next month. I'll let them explain the rest of it to you.] by: Salazar-Parsons Service Each day, we are pounded by relentless images of the rise of the "mainstream" and far right -- from rightist talking heads to neo-Nazis propagandizing their opinions -- through the major as well as "alternative" media. The one thing one has to ask is 'where is the left?' Seldom does one ever see even a half-hearted representation of leftist opinion, perspectives of people of colour or of the urban and rural poor. This observation shouldn't be taken as whining to get a bigger piece of a pie full of cockroaches -- like many societies, this one was not engineered to give equal voice to all. It's with such an understanding that this service was created: to build a base of progressive and radical media on our own terms. The Salazar-Parsons Service is a cost-free and copyright-free collector and distributor of news and opinions for independent and radical/progressive media -- from zines to newspapers to Internet services. Information comes to you by way groups and activists involved in struggles for liberation and justice; via wire reports of the news that gets buried or is never reported at all; from those unafraid to provide a progressive-radical opinion to today's issues and problems; and from sources most people never get to hear about. The goal here is to becoming something other than an "alternative" to the mainstream media, but as a service which, by its working among activists and reporting the battles the media ignores or else demonizes, is in opposition to the mainstream media's packaging of people's lives and our complex struggles for justice. Moses Was A Mystic ================== "Once given the secret code, the hidden meaning is revealed, providing fascinating reading, an exciting adventure in Self-discovery." [Tom Hennessy] If you think back, way back, you'll remember me telling you about Tom Hennessy. He had that file on his web page entitled "Jesus Was A Vegetarian." Now he's come up with a much larger, and (if you want to take my word for it) more insightful view of religion, and more specifically the bible. In his new page (Moses Was A Mystic) he tries to explain the secret code inside the bible. And with this code, supposedly the bible becomes clearer. I was looking through it, trying to find a two or three paragraph snip, that could help you decide if you want to read it. But I found it hard to decide what to choose. I think it's best if I leave the choice up to you. I can tell you this, Tom looks at the bible as a book, not as divine literature. He tries to explain his message in multi- denominational terms, and I think he does a good job of it. If you want to see it, you can find it at the following place: "http://www.nucleus.com/watchman/light.html". I also saved the page as a postscript file, just in case you don't have access to a web browser. Just send me mail, if you want that. If you want to talk to Tom himself, his email address is: The Public Shelter ================== "Cogito ergo boom." [Susan Sontag] I can't even think of the words to describe this one. I'll let Jayne Loader do it for me... Incidentally, the site can be found at: "http://www.publicshelter.com/m/top.html". I think this one can best be summed up by two thoughts... 1. You have to see it to believe it, and 2. It was only a matter of time. by: Jayne Loader Public Shelter is a CD-ROM. It is also a Web Site and a record of America's love affair with the atom. You cannot even begin to imagine how much material is out there. We spent almost fourteen months going through every archive we could find and we barely scratched the surface. What we did find was more than enough to pack a CD-ROM with some of the best, funniest, most serious and completely absurd materials ever assembled about nuclear weapons, nuclear testing, human radiation studies, and nuclear power. Everything from the Trinity Test to the present. We have more than 400 meg of film (78 film clips in all),more than 400 photos, 10 hours of audio, 1900 text files (all fully searchable), plus 18 original songs and a library of some of the best science fiction ever written. Future Imperfect... =================== "To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open. Man, surrounded by facts, permitting himself no surmise, no intuitive flash, no great hypothesis, no risk, is in a locked cell. Ignorance cannot seal the mind and imagination more surely." [Lillian Smith] So here we go. Off into the great unknown. From here to the end, I'm going to be reprinting the predictions that I have received over the last month. I just asked what the future will be like, and you answered. As usual, if it doesn't have anyone else's name on it, then I get to take credit for it. "The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble." [Elias Canetti] And that's why we're doing it... Anything that I feel needs to be said before any of these will be in the traditional square brackets... Enjoy... Return to the Renaissance ========================= "Architects, painters, and sculptors must recognize anew and learn to grasp the composite character of a building both as an entity and in its separate parts. Only then will their work be imbued with the architectonic spirit which it has lost as "salon art." . . . Together let us desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith." [Walter Gropius] "I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again. . . the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul." [J. G. Ballard] I gave some thought to my own question last night. What can we expect to see in the future? I think I figured it out. I don't think that this is something that the next generation will see, but it will fall somewhere along the line. Probably two or three generations from now. (In case you wanted a time frame) I think we're heading back towards a renaissance age. It's nothing I can justify, but it is something that I feel. A generation where the focus shifts from doing to creating. And this will be something new and different. It doesn't need to be done with oil paints on canvas either. Everything will start to change. All forms of art will be mass produced and widely accepted. Music will change dynamically from what we have now... All of the 'angst' rockers that seem to be cluttering the airways now, will be gone within a couple of years. Cobain's out of the game, Vedder doesn't like the spotlight, and Reznor is thinking about lightening up. Oddly enough, I think that classical music will really become big again. Not just in the upper crust of society and not for the cultured crowd. I can see hints of that now. It makes complete sense to me. For it to have survived for so long, it has to hold some kind of universal appeal, so why not have it come back into style. If you don't believe me, or if you choose not to believe, think about this... I know someone with a CD that starts off as Bach, and then gets deconstructed, distorted, reconstructed and remixed to sound like a dance track. Unfortunately, they couldn't fool me. It was Bach, and he was back. So why will all this happen? People, very simply put, are bored. There's nothing new. At least, not on the surface. For the most part people have stopped thinking. Why bother? It's so much easier to just sit in front of the tv for a couple of hours every night. Who has the time to think of something new? And even if you could come up with something new, it just wouldn't sell. Try suggesting to some friends that you don't go out to a club on a Thursday night. Try suggesting that you don't need to go out and 'do something' every single Saturday night. People will look at you like you're crazy. It's strange. I have one friend that helps me notice what people are thinking. We just sit down at a restaurant, and over the course of the meal, we usually break down all the strange little quirks that we've noticed over the past week, month, year. In the middle of the summer, he asked me, very quietly, if I just didn't feel like doing stuff sometimes. I asked him what he meant and he told me that sometimes when his friends are going out partying, he tells them that he just doesn't feel like it, and they can't accept that. Perfectly normal people, but the thought of turning down a night of drinking and dancing, is completely foreign to them. We've all fallen into our little routines. Everyone has them, but no one wants to change them. Not worth the hassle. What's the point of going to the trouble of setting your alarm for 6:25 instead of 6:30, just so you can get that extra five minutes of consciousness. What can happen in five minutes, that I have to wake up for? Thursday nights are better club nights than any other week night. So if we miss it, we'll have to wait for another week to get one. "No, I can't go to the batting cages with you, my favourite show will be on then... Well I could tape it, but it's just not the same..." Of course, that was the type of thinking that caused me to miss finding out who shot Mr. Burns on the Simpsons... Stupid me. I just had a craving for an ice cream cone, and so I called up a friend and we went. Didn't get back until it was over. We had our chance, but we blew it. Now we'll just have to wait for a couple of months for it to come back on. The Go-Go's were right... "Has the whole world lost its head, or is it just me?" Time Capsule ============ "As for freedom, it will soon cease to exist in any shape or form. Living will depend upon absolute obedience to a strict set of arrangements, which it will no longer be possible to transgress. The air traveller is not free. In the future, life's passengers will be even less so: they will travel through their lives fastened to their (corporate) seats." [Jean Baudrillard] [I liked this one, it just took me a second read to understand what Greg was doing...] by: Greg Webster Under the cornerstone of a future building lies a metalloid box... filled with things for people even further in time to one day remember and reminisce about. The people who will choose these items would hold power, of course, influential figures making a statement of the glory of their civilization. At the same time, a small group of misfits download the story of these powerful peoples' choices, and decide they are just as capable of showing to the future what life was like in 2046. Ingleton-Inoue Project SarariBoys ---------------------- ---------- Dieko-VIII Satellite-correct Mickey Mouse watch Watch. Donated by Samuel Dieko Some things are never out style. Safe under a million tons of Radiation badge stone, a perfect 3 carat It's not forever, just manmade diamond sits immutable about 10,000 years. for all time. Air bottled from the Inoue Breathing mask Arcology... recycled indefinitely. So you can walk the streets in the arcology shadow. Karenina (TM) outerwear Ryuku's black leather ultimate fashion for ultimate jacket...the guy at the people. Semi-transparent hospital was kind enough to show the perfect chemical to let it be taken when tan. he died in the waiting room. Chablis, 2046. 3 artificial A very good year. endorphin pills. A map of the downtown core, A newsprint map of the complete with the new I-I entire city...marked into building yet to be completed. 'territories'. The ink will fade, but by then it won't matter. A small container of A food stamp designer food...contoured and a kibble-bar by computer to individual (one per day as long taste buds. as you may live) A micro-crystal rose, Empty package presented by the mayor of dermal contraception to his lovely wife. And On My Wall... ================= "Space-ships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate." [Arthur Koestler] by: Paul Sheen For me, the future means a half-dozen more Kyuss albums before the inevitable break-up. The near future has me totally immersed in school every 4 months and work the other 4 months. The distant future has me doing all those wonderful things society wants me to... maybe. The near future has a baseball season with 162 games. The near future has us hitting the Millennium without being able to fly to Mars. The near future means we can't set our movies to the year 2000 and be in the future. The distant future has some great innovation that will make our lives both more and less complicated at the same time (i.e. computers). Human nature will defy the odds and break records that weren't supposed to be broken. And in the end there's only one thing that is guaranteed to happen to every person... (but no I'm not a morbid person). It'll Never Happen... ===================== This is one of my personal favourite theories. I like bringing it up, whenever people are looking for some little tidbit of small talk to strike up a conversation. It normally induces a more interesting conversation that 'nice weather, eh?'. Plus, as an added bonus. I really think that this one will happen... Ten years from now the line separating men and women will take another step towards obscurity. But let me start off by telling a little story... Last Thursday, my housemate, and a couple of his friends met at our place, and before I had actually figured out who was who, a heated debate broke out about who was the first one to get their ear pierced. That led to the inevitable "who got both ears pierced first, and who jumped onto the bandwagon" question. By observation, I figured that we had two of us with naked ears, two guys with both ears done, and one 'left-ear-only' guy. So we had all possible avenues for discussion. And I was about to break out this theory, then I realized that now might not be the best time for it. But that's when I decided to write it in here. I think it really started when women started wearing pants. There was nothing wrong with it, and I guess they liked it, since they still are. So that's where this adventure began. Then men started growing their hair. Was this a form or rebuttal, or just simple rebellion? I'm not sure, but it was probably a form of both. And there was a big fuss about it, and I'm sure some men even told their friends that "you'll never see me with my hair that long, I'll look like a woman!" But that was the sixties, and no one really cared too much about what *the man* thought, so it stuck. Then came the seventies... Men started getting their ears pierced (I'm not sure what women did to incite this rebellion). Probably to show their sensitive side. Yeah, that must be it. And there was probably a big fuss about it, and I'm sure some men even told their friends that "I wouldn't be caught dead with an ear ring, people would think I'm gay!" And since the sane were too busy fighting off the evils of disco, it stuck. Now it's common. Nothing really happened in the eighties, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention, so I missed it. At least not to blur the line. The only thing I can think of would be hair dyeing, and fish net t-shirts. But those weren't much cause for social concern, since only the 'punks' did it, and it would never enter mainstream society. (I'm sure they also thought that only biker's have tattoos too.) So what will the nineties have to offer to the future? What will we be able to look back and tell our grandchildren that we just didn't do, thuds back in the eighties? This is my theory, don't worry, I'll be brief. Men will start wearing make-up. Not just to cover a pimple, and not just actors. It will be commonplace. Don't go to the gym, just put on a bit of rouge, and people will think that your rosy red cheeks are from a tough workout. Cut yourself shaving? Don't worry, a bit of coverup will hide that unsightly scab, until it heals up. Got wrinkles? I'm sure they have something to hide that too. So now, all of my male readers will be thinking that I'm insane. I know a friend of mine told me that I could shoot him if I ever caught him wearing make-up. So that's fine. Just go under the covers, and you can tell me how wrong I am. Tell your friends that "I'm never going to wear make-up, what would people think?" But one day, something will come along, and distract you. And the next day you'll realize that in a moment of weakness, you went to the local drug store, and made a little purchase. Sure it won't be for everybody. I still get my hair cut once a month, and both of my ears a naked. But someone will. It's just a matter of time. Kids Say The Darndest Things... =============================== "Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured." [Ambrose Bierce] [Maybe it's just because she's my sister, but I really like this one... Her little footnote is that it works best when sung to the Oscar Mayer wiener song.] by: Vashti Singh My vision of the future Is really really neat Everyone is friends And really really sweet It's the raddest world And nobody makes fun If you're not the same Or just like everyone People are real placid And no one ever fights And everyone loves everyone And everyone is right Stuff You Really Need To Know... ================================ Well if you have this then you probably know how you got it, but in case this was passed on to you, then I'll just let you know where you can find it. mail: eternity@cyberspace.org web: http://www.interlog.com/~vash (I've included a bunch of links to this page too, so it might be worth it just to poke around for a bit) ftp: ftp.etext.org: /pub/Zines/WhyMe/ gopher: gopher.etext.org (follow the prompts) newsgroups: alt.zines subscriptions: Just send me mail, I'll add you to the list. All I ask is that you let me know what you think about this 'zine, and you can even mention how you found out about it. That's not asking too much is it? You can also ask for back issues, if you want to find out what Eternity was like before you got there... As always, if you have a question, comment, statement, rant, or anything, feel free to let me know. (Who knows, you might even feel better that you did it.) There's always room for me to improve, and there's always room for an extra page of whatever you have to offer. Disclaimer ========== I take full responsibility of the overall content here. There might be other contributors (and what they say is their own intellectual property which I won't hold any claim to), but what goes into this is my choice. Truth is subjective (if you believe something then to you it is fact, and if you don't then it is fiction, simple enough?) so I won't make any claims about honesty... believe what you want. If you're going to use something from here just make sure that you cite whoever wrote the article. If it doesn't say who wrote it, then it's probably me. I'd also like to be told that you're doing it, if for nothing else, than to satisfy my ego. Sanjay Singh (8/28/95)