Stan Brakhage

What begins as a pleasant thought experiment about perception, sharply turns into a loaded philosophical rant against our lais a fair attitude towards existence. The mainstream of us have been spiraling downward in our understanding of the world, amounting to less understanding of our place in time than the relative existential knowledge of cavemen. Quite the argument. This reminds me of Terrance McKenna who warned us that "culture is not your friend"and who stated "we are led by the least among us." This also ties into the work of Joseph Campbell whom I quoted in my last entry. So what? I tend to agree with these attitudes, but what can be done? It is easy to forget and become absorbed into the humdrum of society, experience mundane, prescribed reality, rather than having deep human moments or perceiving the world as an outsider looking in. However, polls show that the "millennial" generation (people 18-33) are less religious and less political than previous generations. So it seems that we are collectively dropping out of earlier mainstream attitudes. We are also more educated that previous generations. Could any of this mean that we are more capable of understanding our place in the universe and experiencing a reality that is not prescribed to us? Not sure, but it's interesting to consider. How does one measure the spiritual deepness of a generation or society? Maybe less war, less hunger, more cooperation...less phallic, more yonic (funny that spell check doesn't recognize that word)... a balanced yin-yang utopia. OOOOOOHHHHHHmmmmmmm