We spend a great deal of time in chaos and non-attainment. Our modernist forebears had at least the driving thought of a central paradigm. They knew what the Good was, what Virtue was -- and how by pursuing these things they could gain in material wealth and physical vitality. As the modern world decayed in the napalm showers of Vietnam and the demanifestation of public virtue during Watergate, the values were lost, the goals set astray, and the center gave way. This has produced the two great factors that rule the postmodernist world -- weakness and speed.

Weakness is the condition of having no ruling thoughts. Anybody that’s loud enough, stylish enough, or otherwise can present themselves with the appropriate Symbol can gain a group of followers. God is indeed a shout in the street. We will see any number of opportunistic cults, enraged bombers, and marching morons. Some looking with nostalgia to the end of the modernist era may think that such mass movements are some healthy remanifestation of the protests of the 60s. In fact it is just the opposite. Today’s mass movements are people looking for an Establishment to join.

Speed comes from the lack of a ruling paradigm. With no anchoring place for soul or mind, sudden -- basic self change can occur in a few hours. And when the individual is so metaphoric -- "Society" which after all arises from the individuals is even more metaphoric. The landscape of human will and consciousness changes like the clouds.

These two factors give mankind something it has never before possessed -- a great freedom. Most will not opt for this freedom since it will require each individual to find what is Essential in and of themselves. It will take work, a concentration of purpose that makes each an eye of the hurricane of the world. But it is only in that individualism that survival from annihilation is possible.

Otherwise we will grow into the world machine changing our minds to reflect the latest CNN poll. Orwell was wrong -- propaganda isn’t necessary for Big Brother to thrive, only inaction.

I am going to propose seven mental disciplines that might help people find and refine their individualism. The application is up to you. Send no money.

1. Decide who your worst enemy is. Is it your math teacher, your boss, your mother? Now make a list of all the amazing good things that came about because of them. Did the math teacher sending you to summer school cause you to meet your girlfriend? Did your boss clue you in on the doctor that saved your life? Make a list of how the ‘enemy’ shaped your life in a truly beneficial manner. Make a habit of this practice and you will come to see that the important issue is not the ill-will that washes over us like splattered mud from a puddle, but the shaping that comes to our lives. Thus you will begin to see all changes around you as an opportunity for self sculpture.
2. Learn to suffer fools. So often we let our best trainers escape us. There’s that neighbor with the cruddy ankle snapping dog and his obnoxious politics that he desires to share with us any chance he gets. What an admirable trainer! Cultivate an attitude of seeing him as an actor. Fantasize that he’s not really like he is, but playing a role. Learn to appreciate his performance. Thus you become habituated to seeing life as a comedy played for you pleasure rather than an endless string of irritating events ruled by random fuck-ups.
3. Learn to see your place in history Forget your relationship to the Zeitgeist -- it’s been replaced by the Poltergeist!! How you fit into the now is uninteresting when there is no central Now. Begin a list of all historical events absolutely necessary for your birth to happen. Did an ancestor come to America because of the potato famine in Ireland? Was an ancestor captured from the coasts of Africa and sold here? Thus you will begin to see that endless cycles of creation necessary for your existence -- do this not to think that the universe owes you something -- but to consider how important your actions are in creating the lives of future men and women. You and you alone are the Now.
4. Do a video festival for friends. Make a list of all the movies that profoundly influenced you. Was it a horror movie on Midnight Shlocko Theater? Rent them and show them to your friends. Watch their reactions. Get them to talk about their thoughts and feelings for each film. Thus you will begin to see how having the right thoughts at the right time has made you what you are. Using this knowledge begin actively seeking the correct life experiences that would likely make you have the right thoughts for that which you would become. Thus you learn more and more how to shape yourself by shaping your preconscious. And you habituate yourself to being in charge of your thoughts rather than some random media programmer.
5. Create a mask. Never before has it been so easy to create a persona to try on new features. The gender switching, age changing, fantasy world of the Information Autobahn provides endless opportunities. Much has been written on this yoga, so I need to say little. But observe no matter what mask you wear -- that the very act of endless change and creativity points to some underlying core self of stability. Learn to feel that core, that center, as you type away at your fantasy manifestation. Thus you begin to feel your own center -- your own eye in the postmodern hurricane.
6. Keep a secret. Find someplace calm and interesting to hide out. Tell no one about it. Here you will have bent space to your will. Slowly the hiding place will become a map of your consciousness. You will see in it an external representation of the inner hidden place that no one knows. Go to this place when you need calm or when you need omens. Such objective gateways into the subjective world will begin to exert a calming influence on others as well. If we as individuals create enough secret sanctuaries, the world itself will grow calmer.
7. Find a random alarm clock. Observe your environment. Is there some event that occurs daily at a random time? Perhaps the arrival of the postman? If so make use of this seeming intrusion into your life. Play like it is an alarm clock. That it’s time to wake up now. Get up, stretch, walk around. When you return to your work, play the following game -- assume you don’t know what’s going on. Gather data. Act on the situation to change it in some way. (There are many books on problem solving on the market -- read some). Thus you learn to bring consciousness into the trance like life of your work. You become for a brief moment the one-eyed man in the Kingdom of the Blind.