In the eyes of the master, are we all equal? Do the ones who dare to risk their body and mind attain a final position that is equivilent to the cautious. If we are all equal, then why risk at all? Why should we strive to surpase the accomplishments of our ancestors? Our accomplishments in our pursuit for an easier life has led to self-enslavement. Now I must work to pay for trappings that the world implies I can call my own. Maybe, if I'm fortunate, I will be able to save my earnings and take time for contemplation when I am among the elderly. No...the masses wont allow it. I must be in production, or it will take from me what it said was mine. Living off of machines, on the line of death, being constricted until every last resource is squeezed from my drained, empty, sac of a body.

I will not tolerate this outcome. I will strike down the nefarious calamity that chains us all to the ground. Do not let this world change into a super-machine. This reality is not so serious. For all we know, we are a molecule in a drop of water about to hit the ground. Be free...that's all that matters.

-sry, i had to get that out...my friends wouldnt understand.

-Adrian

Amen! I for one plan to lose the 'rat race'!

What amuses me is that humans, individuals, created the machines, and are the masses that are complained about. The inhumanity is caused by humans. Isn't there some delicious cosmic irony in that we seem to be trying to escape a world of our own making (or someone's making)? Our current world was not an act of nature, but an act of human effort. Can we escape ourselves? Cool graphic. I like the layers of images and mix of techniques.

Great graphic.

That is something that confuses me greatly. Technology started out as a way to simplyifiy our primitive and difficult lives. But it has now evolved into this giant super-machine that is seemingly unstoppable. A machine that requires our own enslavement, as its insatiable thirst for growth is exponential. Yes, I enjoy technology and I understand how dependant I have been on technology my entire life. But I, like all of you, am not meant to sit here hour after our, bored beyond belief, pushing buttons and watching the glowing gate of slow demise as I grow old, obese, and doscile. Perhaps I was born after my time, or perhaps I am merely venting on something that has been bothering all of our souls for quite some time. I want to be back in my niche, among the trees, the mountains, and the bear. I want to find that special beauty that will never exists among the lubricated streets of the machine. Where technology consists of a new type of bow, or blade. Where I rest on level ground with the beasts of god as I hunt them down just to sustain life. That is where I belong. That is the place long to go.

No bathrooms, no computers, no heat in the winter, no air conditioning in the summer, no medicine, no movies, no restaurants, no thanks. I'm a child of my universe. Machines are an extension of my hand and my brain. They exist to serve me. There's no going back for me. :)

I have resorted to the ircorrigible art forms of numbers. Here are some fun primitve tests. Is 505 a number in the numbers games of New York in the early 1900's? What about 124? How does 232 fit in or is it out? Why? What numbers could be used to represent the phrase "Keystone and Southern?" Why is the number 288 so powerful? Which of these number archtypes or styles would be acceptable as telephone area codes in the era before all three number codes became acceptable? Before there was a machine there was a machine. Note that no arithmetic or counting is involved in the use of these numbers. There is incomplete or non-relevant serialization.

My head hurts.

505 is of the Poor Clares having a double separated by a 0. 124 is of the type of New York with no doubles anywhere and no zeroes and only three digits. 232 is out in the New York and Poor Clare systems since it is solid and has a double two. You need a terminal (Atlanta) to figure a number for Keystone and Southern. 288 is the molecular weight of testosterone. 505 is of the type of area codes. The only other type for area code had a 1 in the middle of a double number. (That keystone doesn't make 505 Southern) hint: Try the number of women and children who walked out of the Alamo after Santa Ana's attack.

LOL your a real trip man...I thought I was bad with the social security codes.

Corruption of such things as early Arab texts having all words with three letters and no vowels as well as the early forms of Hebrew reflect teaching elements found serviceable to understanding early Greek found in libraries in Alexandria, Egypt. To fully comprehend this you need to realize the Greeks had no writing system. Inscriptions of Roman capitals provide early Latin. A mentor when I was growing up said, "The men in Detroit who control numbers control murder." By 1964 when New Hampshire got it's state lottery to reduce taxes it was becoming possible to study this corruption.

The Greeks had no writing system? I thought they stole one from the Phoenicians which was in turn stolen by the Romans. I'm out of this thread. I have enough headaches as it is.

The trailways bus won't allow you to hide. Numbers trace you where Eden is a myth. The Feds found Johnny Reb a hundred and thirty years ago and didn't spend one byte. Big brother, or sister, is everywhere. You would probably have to wharp out to New Tokyo to escape that corruption and even then you'ld hear the coal mine calling and someone would approach you with a union suit. Its all in the numbers.

Some work for Marguerita, I don't know whether the last queen of Italy or the mistress of Mussolini. Moving on in complexities of a simple nature you find the telephone dial or number pad correlates letters to numbers based on the old exchange system. These letters are Roman. I hope you now can see why I had the "Book of the Dead" with hieroglyphics tying to Aristotle and Plutarch and not so deliberately to Biblios in Phoenice.(Venice?)

I meant that the Romans stole from the Greeks that stole from the Phoenicians. Writing, that is. Well, other things too, but that's what I was talking about. I don't understand anything else that has been written since the poem was posted. But I'm okay with that. I'm a budget analyst. I don't need to understand numbers. ;)

A wicked laugh. Therein lies the rub. Its all in the numbers and the men who control the numbers in Detroit control murder as do the men who control the numbers at Bud and miller, at K-Mart and Excello.

The Phoenicians...I think Lebananeese, while the those who fled Troy (ouch) settled at the mouth of the Po.(Po Clare's?) That's going East not West. Cheese mon. How essential is the muse who calculates a bit of truth?Lol.

I love the fiery sentiment of your essay. I need to keep it in the back of my mind for one of my characters. It fits her philosophy to a 'T.' The graphic is well done as well. I've looked at it several times and found something new each time. Cheers!

"Technology ... the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it." - Max Frisch