(You Will Only Make Matters Worse) 

Continued 1966

 

XXX. THE MOST, THE BEST, WE CAN DO, WE
BELIEVE (WANTING TO GIVE EVIDENCE OF 
LOVE), IS TO GET OUT OF THE WAY, LEAVE
SPACE AROUND WHOMEVER OR WHATEVER IT IS.
BUT THERE IS NOT SPACE! DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
PENNILESSNESS NOW AND PENNILESSNESS THEN: 
NOW WE’VE GOT UNQUESTIONED CREDIT. “IN
THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD . ” PUPUL JAYAKAR 
(STRAIGHT FROM INDIA), TALKING ABOUT
COMPUTERS, SAID: AN EXPLOSION OF THE WORD;
COMMUNICATION WITHOUT LANGUAGE! (WE’LL
STILL SPEAK: A) FOR PRACTICAL REASONS; B)
FOR THE PLEASURE OF IT; C) TO SAY WHAT 
SHOULD/SHOULDN’T BE DONE.) Bird up and
overhead. Friends we no longer see. 
Gone. Some died. XXXI. MEXICO, INDIA,
CANADA (CHANGING CITIZENSHIP). Electronic
democracy (instantaneous voting on the
part of anyone): no sheep. World
credit. Hearing my thoughts, he asked: Are 
you a Marxist? Answer: I’m an 
anarchist, same as you are when you’re 
telephoning, turning on/off the lights,
drinking water. PRIVATE PROSPECT OF
ENLIGHTENMENT’S NO LONGER SUFFICIENT. NOT 
JUST SELF— BUT SOCIAL-REALIZATION. Fuller 
spoke of Semantography, universal picture
language devised by C. K. Bliss, said
it was rich in nouns while what we
need’s verbs. Servant problem. What’s
what? (Russia, U.S.A.) Which is which? I
mentioned drugs. Kremen said the human
mind’s interesting enough in the 
non-toxic stateXXXII. Asked about
housing utility, Fuller pointed out
electrically-lit roadside telephone
booths, twenty-four hour use of
facilities. (How this came about escaped 
our notice, no voting or purchase
involved. Bed, food, bath to be expected,
added to telephone or available elsewhere: 
decentralization of living.) UP BY
OUR BOOTSTRAPS! LOST IN TWO 
DIFFERENT WAYS. THERE WAS ALSO A FIRE TO
PUT OUT. ALONE (NO ONE TO DISAGREE WITH).
Chess. ASKED WHAT HE DID, HE SAID HE’D 
STUDIED METEOROLOGY, PASSED EXAMINATIONS,
GRADUATED, THAT WEATHER’ S SIMPLE TO
PREDICT. (WHAT HAD HIS TEACHERS HAD IN 
MIND?) “THERE’S NO REASON FOR THE 
MISTAKES THAT ARE GENERALLY MADE.”
XXXIII. Changes in aquariums: all the fish 
in the same tank; no Latin
information. Cross-Texas, eighty miles per
hour, radio rocks and rolls (now I 
listen): “If it’s a game, I won’t play
it. Don’t just stand there. Tell me
what’s, what’s, what’s, what’s on
your mind.” He registered as a
conscientious objector. Drafted 
anyway, he was put on a train going south. 
He escaped, was caught, spent a year in 
service. Then, since he never cashed any 
of the checks they’d given him, he
received an honorable discharge.
(Russian chickens had diseased muscles.
Chemical therapies failed. Suddenly, 
the chickens were healthy. The
muscular tissues’d been reduced to
chaos, disorganized by electrical means.) 
XXXIV. Boddhisattva Doctrine: Enter
Nirvana only when all beings, sentient,
non-sentient, are ready to do likewise. 
Couldn’t believe my eyes (stopping for
lunch in Red Bud, Illinois): a single
photograph of nature (mountains,
lake, island, forests) enlarged, printed 
twice, once left to right, once right to
left, the two prints juxtaposed to form a
single image, seam down the middle. 
Eugenics. Proposal: take facts of 
art seriously: try them in economics/ 
politics, giving up, that is, notions about
balance (of power, of wealth),
foreground, background. They will kill
you, she said, with kindness. There’s a
temptation to do nothing simply because
there’s so much to do that one doesn’t
know where to begin. Begin anywhere. For
instance, since electronics is at
the heart of the matter, establish a
global voltage, a single design for
plugs and jacks. Remove the need for
transformers and adaptors. Vary not the
connecting means but the things to be
connected. XXXV. Way’s being found to
overcome problem inherent in painting and
sculpture (fact of object): laser
projection of three-dimensional images.
To remove object place your hand in thin
air behind it. What’s interesting about
minds is they work differently. 
What’s interesting about one mind is that
it works in different ways. Hunting for
one thing, finding another. Gardens 
that seem uncultivated: Tinguely’s at
Soissy-sur-Ecole. I remember clams from the 
Sound exhibited years ago in a Seattle
aquarium (near the Farmer’s Market, 
admission ten cents): their movement,
their timing of it. They were a bed,
immobile, one on top of the other,
two feet deep in a tank of water, sand 
on the bottom of the tank. We were told 
to wait. XXXVI. Weather feels good.
Isn’t. More rain is needed. Water. 
He played two games, winning one, losing
the other. He was continually himself,
totally involved in each game, unmoved
by the outcome of either. What’s the
nature of his teaching? For one
thing: devotion (practice gives evidence
of it). For another: not just
playing half the game but playing all of
it (having a view that includes that of
the opponent). SUDDENLY A CLAM ROSE TO 
THE SURFACE DIRECTLY, REMAINED THERE A
MOMENT, THEN DESCENDED SLOWLY,
LEAF-LIKE, TIPPING ONE WAY, THEN THE
       OTHER, ARRIVING AT THE BOTTOM TO PRODUCE
A DISTURBANCE, SUCH THAT CLAM AFTER CLAM
DID LIKEWISE, SOMETIMES SEVERAL, SOMETIMES
MANY, SOMETIMES NOT ONE AT ALL,
PRODUCING A DANCE THAT COMPLETELY
INVOLVED US. (DOING AIL THAT WE NEEDED TO
DO.) XXXVII. Projects involving many
people and many interruptions go well. 
Private concerns stumble along. THE 
FACT THEIR PARENTS HAVE SEPARATED DOESN’T
DISTURB THE CHILDREN. THEY GO ON
LOOKING AT TELEVISION. HOW OLD SHOULD
THEY BE BEFORE THEY SMOKE MARIJUANA? NO
ONE SEEMS TO KNOW. Tolstoy: art properly
arouses religious emotion (conduces to
brotherhood, all mankind, no
boundaries). Skinner: “Let us agree to
start with, that health is better than
illness, wisdom better than ignorance,
love better than hate, and productive
energy better than neurotic sloth. We
invented machines in order to reduce our
work. Now that we have them we think we
should go on working (Committee of
eight on Automation, Economics and
Employment considering whether U.S.
society should be geared for employment 
or unemployment voted six to two in favor
of employment), XXXVIII. “I BREATHE.”
Starvation. There’s no stopping. The
garden’s a bungalow. The sky’s its
roof. Hedges form the rectangular rooms. 
Apple tree, admired, split as though
struck by lightning. Coincidence?
Branch of it’s on the lawn like a
picture that’s not hanging straight. 
Flowers are withering. Gardener’s on
vacation. Mud is on the windshield,
fallen branches wherever we go. Sky’s
ready for launching of missiles. “He hit 
me first.” We’re open minded. Result:
idea leaving head that had it returns
transformed. Individual’s thoughts become
social projects. “World’s O.K. as
is”: “Work to make the world O.K.” Moksha
transformed is artha from which it was a
liberation. Spirit’s materialized.
Kama? Walking along, it’ll happen we touch 
one another, falling immediately in love.