Introduction to "Captains at the Helm"
It has been a long time since I first began work on what was eventually to become “Captains at the Helm”, the first book I ever wrote. I began writing it for many reasons, the most important of which was to save my life.
Without even being conscious of it, people will base their entire value system and reason for living on a specific vision or goal in which they invest all of the emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual power at their disposal. This vision of what they are and can yet become, focused as it is within invisible parameters on an artificial yet highly charged motivational horizon, gives them the “operating instructions” for dealing with the many challenging people and situations that they are sure to encounter along the path they have chosen, and colors their vision of themselves and their place in the world. Never does one become more conscious of this then when the focus of the vision dies, either slowly and painfully as if from a disease, or when it is murdered all at once. When this happens, the individual becomes like a planet that has been thrown from into the frozen void, flung from its orbit around the unifying star at the center of its solar system, lost and adrift without purpose or meaning. When this loss of a gravitational center occurs, one must begin the work of reconstructing a new orbit, or one is finished.
The world today is full of people who flit from one job to another, seemingly without purpose. Some do it because they do not know who they are or what they want, while some do it because they know precisely who they are and what they want. I was to be a great drummer in a great progressive rock band, and therefore every job was just that – a job, not my Work (and there is a big difference between the two) All of the seeming randomness and chaos of my life fell into a perfect order in relation to this shining goal on my horizon, without which none of it would have made sense. This goal was my basis of value, the “future that gave the rule to my present”. When for a multitude of reasons this specific goal and vision of myself died, the directing agent and supportive basis of my life vanished, threatening to topple the house of cards that had been built on top of it.
No problem, tho, for I had a new scheme brewing: I was to enter politics! It is after all just another form of show business, and since I do not “belong” amongst political types, among them is precisely where I do belong. That oughtta show ‘em! As you can see, I am nothing if not practical…
Yet before I could get myself properly oriented towards my new central vision, a tragedy struck: I fell in love…horribly and disastrously in love. Like all young men, I was in for the self-discovery ride of my life, and it was a tremendously rough and bumpy one. For a brief yet intense period I walked down the truly dark trail that leads into “stalker territory”, and from a rock ledge on the edge of the abyss I peered into the black heart of madness. It was all a slow journey back up from there. The whole experience was an adventure in emotional and psychological masochism, and I am forever thankful that it occurred when it did, for it yielded one of the most important discoveries I ever made: No One Can Destroy You But You Yourself! From this realization comes the ultimate liberation.
So there I was, without the musical goal from which I had previously drawn my direction, in the midst of a partial birth abortion of my political ambitions, covered in the ashes and soot of an exploded dream of love, sinking in the quagmire that I had foolishly chosen to build my castle upon. I had to re-establish the order of my solar system, or I was sunk!
It was around this time that I discovered the thought and writings of the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, whose unique world-view and writing style influences the work to follow. Exposing myself to the “harrowing perspectives” of his radical thought and attitude at this particular juncture of my life had a fateful effect, one so fundamental that I can no longer distinguish its effects from the person that I am from the person that I might be had I never encountered the thought of this great teacher and catalyst when I did. “Beyond Good and Evil” effected my as powerfully as any mind altering drug ever did (one that has lasted for more than ten years) and his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, which was written during an ecstatic peak of inspiration that followed the most devastating heartbreak and loneliness of Nietzsche’s life, provided a mirror that reflected the “frightening grandeur of my own soul” precisely at the time that I needed such a mirror to remind me of it.
Saddled with loss, confusion, humiliation, and the threat of nihilism, yet armed with an unconquerable spirit, a philosophical / warrior disposition, new teacher, and my own will to power, I drove into the North Georgia Mountains on a clear-cool October day with a notepad, a pen, and bottle of whiskey. My plan was to find a roadside overlook with an awesome view, park there for the rest of the day, drink, delineate exactly who and what I was (writing it all down) and come up with a new and profoundly based set of operating codes to inform and construct the vision that would lift me out of the abyss and restore me to the upper air currents in which I belong – treasuring and affirming the beauty and power of life. Afterwards I would just pass out drunk and sleep in my car, waking up cold and alone in the frosty morning. By instigating physical pain and discomfort I hoped to offset the emotional pain that I felt, perhaps numbing and killing it (an insight into the self abuse that plagues our time)
I accomplished this mission in spectacular fashion, and yet failed in the last part. As I finished writing down my future plans, a bus full of churchgoers out on a day ride pulled into my scenic overlook. They all poured out of the bus and spread like floodwater, drowning my desert of melancholy speculation in jabber, laughter, grilled chicken, bouncing balls, and hymn singing. Being slightly in the ‘spirit’ myself, I joined in with them, and although I was and still remain antagonistic and hostile to Christianity, I had a right good time with them. Before the sun set, I drove down off the mountain and returned home with my plan in hand, part of which involved the beginning drafts of “Captains at the Helm”.
This book was begun in the early 90’s, and has gone thru a multitude of re-writes and reformulations. Its earliest form was even printed up and distributed to a few people, an action that I fully regret now, as those versions were naïve, poorly written, atrociously misspelled, half-baked and juvenile, “academic” (according to one critic) repetitive, and embarrassing. It was the earliest larval stage of a work that needed time and experience to mature into something even remotely approaching a philosophy in the process of development. I have not seen those early versions in years and I would be afraid to see them now, for they hit wide of the truth far more often than the final version that you hold today, and are far less dangerous because of it!
Even this final version embarrasses me frequently. I myself, the author, take exception to certain things written in it. Yet writing philosophy is very similar to recording music. A musician gives the performance that he is capable of at the time he gives it. Later, as he gets better, he may be frequently embarrassed when he plays back his earlier albums, and yet these albums and the level of performance that they represent were necessary steps on the path towards his present abilities. Even tho I can read “Captains at the Helm” and squirm with embarrassment at certain sections, there are many good reasons for me to leave it as it is: one is the changing technology I use, which renders re-prints impossible without a crazy-quilt hodge-podge of different intermingling letter sizes and font styles; another is the fact that the original programs the book was saved on are lost, which means corrections would involve the re-writing of entire pages. After so many years of re-writes and reprints, I am just not going to work on it any more.
The most important reason is that I can either endlessly revise old work, or create new work. We all change, we all grow, and what was once our cutting edge becomes an old nostalgic playground good for nothing but conjuring ghosts of the past. In terms of our own artistic and intellectual progress – the past is not our future. A work must reflect who we were at the time of its creation. To keep revising a book to keep pace with our development is tantamount to deleting it. Better to just write a new one.
The early sections of this book are directed at the people of my place and time who tend to vociferously proclaim their faith in “that” God – the Judeo-Christian God; a conception that no longer occupies my mind as it did at the time. Not only are the things that I write about this deity a blatant challenge to “His” conception, they are also the means by which I liberated myself from that conception.
If the intemperateness of my attacks upon this deity do not strike you as the tone of one who is liberated from him, you are correct. I was not free of the Judeo-Christian concept of God when I wrote this book. I was free of it when I finished.
Some of the views on the soul, spirituality, and the formation of thought and identity as expressed herein no longer resonate with the views that I currently hold, but that is only fitting, considering the ultimate subject matter of the book itself. If I am driven by the Progmotivark, my conceptions will continue to evolve and incorporate new perceptions and experiences from the mysterious realms that were unknown to me at the time of this writing. This is why a book is not, and can never be, my final position, but only a penultimate expression of particular view on the arc of development.
“Captains at the Helm” was the book that I needed to write at that time in my life, and furthermore - it is the book that I did write. I hope that it reaches those who are in search of the things that is has to say.
- Werbinox
October 17, 2006
Without even being conscious of it, people will base their entire value system and reason for living on a specific vision or goal in which they invest all of the emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual power at their disposal. This vision of what they are and can yet become, focused as it is within invisible parameters on an artificial yet highly charged motivational horizon, gives them the “operating instructions” for dealing with the many challenging people and situations that they are sure to encounter along the path they have chosen, and colors their vision of themselves and their place in the world. Never does one become more conscious of this then when the focus of the vision dies, either slowly and painfully as if from a disease, or when it is murdered all at once. When this happens, the individual becomes like a planet that has been thrown from into the frozen void, flung from its orbit around the unifying star at the center of its solar system, lost and adrift without purpose or meaning. When this loss of a gravitational center occurs, one must begin the work of reconstructing a new orbit, or one is finished.
The world today is full of people who flit from one job to another, seemingly without purpose. Some do it because they do not know who they are or what they want, while some do it because they know precisely who they are and what they want. I was to be a great drummer in a great progressive rock band, and therefore every job was just that – a job, not my Work (and there is a big difference between the two) All of the seeming randomness and chaos of my life fell into a perfect order in relation to this shining goal on my horizon, without which none of it would have made sense. This goal was my basis of value, the “future that gave the rule to my present”. When for a multitude of reasons this specific goal and vision of myself died, the directing agent and supportive basis of my life vanished, threatening to topple the house of cards that had been built on top of it.
No problem, tho, for I had a new scheme brewing: I was to enter politics! It is after all just another form of show business, and since I do not “belong” amongst political types, among them is precisely where I do belong. That oughtta show ‘em! As you can see, I am nothing if not practical…
Yet before I could get myself properly oriented towards my new central vision, a tragedy struck: I fell in love…horribly and disastrously in love. Like all young men, I was in for the self-discovery ride of my life, and it was a tremendously rough and bumpy one. For a brief yet intense period I walked down the truly dark trail that leads into “stalker territory”, and from a rock ledge on the edge of the abyss I peered into the black heart of madness. It was all a slow journey back up from there. The whole experience was an adventure in emotional and psychological masochism, and I am forever thankful that it occurred when it did, for it yielded one of the most important discoveries I ever made: No One Can Destroy You But You Yourself! From this realization comes the ultimate liberation.
So there I was, without the musical goal from which I had previously drawn my direction, in the midst of a partial birth abortion of my political ambitions, covered in the ashes and soot of an exploded dream of love, sinking in the quagmire that I had foolishly chosen to build my castle upon. I had to re-establish the order of my solar system, or I was sunk!
It was around this time that I discovered the thought and writings of the philosopher Friederich Nietzsche, whose unique world-view and writing style influences the work to follow. Exposing myself to the “harrowing perspectives” of his radical thought and attitude at this particular juncture of my life had a fateful effect, one so fundamental that I can no longer distinguish its effects from the person that I am from the person that I might be had I never encountered the thought of this great teacher and catalyst when I did. “Beyond Good and Evil” effected my as powerfully as any mind altering drug ever did (one that has lasted for more than ten years) and his work “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, which was written during an ecstatic peak of inspiration that followed the most devastating heartbreak and loneliness of Nietzsche’s life, provided a mirror that reflected the “frightening grandeur of my own soul” precisely at the time that I needed such a mirror to remind me of it.
Saddled with loss, confusion, humiliation, and the threat of nihilism, yet armed with an unconquerable spirit, a philosophical / warrior disposition, new teacher, and my own will to power, I drove into the North Georgia Mountains on a clear-cool October day with a notepad, a pen, and bottle of whiskey. My plan was to find a roadside overlook with an awesome view, park there for the rest of the day, drink, delineate exactly who and what I was (writing it all down) and come up with a new and profoundly based set of operating codes to inform and construct the vision that would lift me out of the abyss and restore me to the upper air currents in which I belong – treasuring and affirming the beauty and power of life. Afterwards I would just pass out drunk and sleep in my car, waking up cold and alone in the frosty morning. By instigating physical pain and discomfort I hoped to offset the emotional pain that I felt, perhaps numbing and killing it (an insight into the self abuse that plagues our time)
I accomplished this mission in spectacular fashion, and yet failed in the last part. As I finished writing down my future plans, a bus full of churchgoers out on a day ride pulled into my scenic overlook. They all poured out of the bus and spread like floodwater, drowning my desert of melancholy speculation in jabber, laughter, grilled chicken, bouncing balls, and hymn singing. Being slightly in the ‘spirit’ myself, I joined in with them, and although I was and still remain antagonistic and hostile to Christianity, I had a right good time with them. Before the sun set, I drove down off the mountain and returned home with my plan in hand, part of which involved the beginning drafts of “Captains at the Helm”.
This book was begun in the early 90’s, and has gone thru a multitude of re-writes and reformulations. Its earliest form was even printed up and distributed to a few people, an action that I fully regret now, as those versions were naïve, poorly written, atrociously misspelled, half-baked and juvenile, “academic” (according to one critic) repetitive, and embarrassing. It was the earliest larval stage of a work that needed time and experience to mature into something even remotely approaching a philosophy in the process of development. I have not seen those early versions in years and I would be afraid to see them now, for they hit wide of the truth far more often than the final version that you hold today, and are far less dangerous because of it!
Even this final version embarrasses me frequently. I myself, the author, take exception to certain things written in it. Yet writing philosophy is very similar to recording music. A musician gives the performance that he is capable of at the time he gives it. Later, as he gets better, he may be frequently embarrassed when he plays back his earlier albums, and yet these albums and the level of performance that they represent were necessary steps on the path towards his present abilities. Even tho I can read “Captains at the Helm” and squirm with embarrassment at certain sections, there are many good reasons for me to leave it as it is: one is the changing technology I use, which renders re-prints impossible without a crazy-quilt hodge-podge of different intermingling letter sizes and font styles; another is the fact that the original programs the book was saved on are lost, which means corrections would involve the re-writing of entire pages. After so many years of re-writes and reprints, I am just not going to work on it any more.
The most important reason is that I can either endlessly revise old work, or create new work. We all change, we all grow, and what was once our cutting edge becomes an old nostalgic playground good for nothing but conjuring ghosts of the past. In terms of our own artistic and intellectual progress – the past is not our future. A work must reflect who we were at the time of its creation. To keep revising a book to keep pace with our development is tantamount to deleting it. Better to just write a new one.
The early sections of this book are directed at the people of my place and time who tend to vociferously proclaim their faith in “that” God – the Judeo-Christian God; a conception that no longer occupies my mind as it did at the time. Not only are the things that I write about this deity a blatant challenge to “His” conception, they are also the means by which I liberated myself from that conception.
If the intemperateness of my attacks upon this deity do not strike you as the tone of one who is liberated from him, you are correct. I was not free of the Judeo-Christian concept of God when I wrote this book. I was free of it when I finished.
Some of the views on the soul, spirituality, and the formation of thought and identity as expressed herein no longer resonate with the views that I currently hold, but that is only fitting, considering the ultimate subject matter of the book itself. If I am driven by the Progmotivark, my conceptions will continue to evolve and incorporate new perceptions and experiences from the mysterious realms that were unknown to me at the time of this writing. This is why a book is not, and can never be, my final position, but only a penultimate expression of particular view on the arc of development.
“Captains at the Helm” was the book that I needed to write at that time in my life, and furthermore - it is the book that I did write. I hope that it reaches those who are in search of the things that is has to say.
- Werbinox
October 17, 2006
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home