Accountability - in an age of false reasoning

Accountability

- the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.

"I'm the commander ... see, I don't need to explain ... 

I do not need to explain why I say things  ...

that's the best part about being president." 

(as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War)

the new testamant

it's a simple concept really - when you're accountable, you are being true to your given nature.  you are, in essence "honoring" your desire to "rise to the occasion" and to take a stand for what you truly believe in.  a rare opportunity - it's a testiment of our foreboding commitment to our higher power and into an elevated awareness and a challenge to those we care for - to do the same.  it's all in the ritual - written in stone ... biblical.

to love and obey - ok work with me here. "to cherish and serve",  what?  i don't think so.   "till death do us part??"  i didn't agree to that!  ...  "our father who art in heaven"???  ah ok - maybe.

ok WAIT a minute!!  this is getting complicated!

back it up -

welcome to my rant in the rubble - and a few thoughts on the truths and lies, that teeters on that fine line that separates them - an easy essay in masculine dysfunction which explores the bi-polar shadows of the modern male psyche - all in this brief instalment i call ...

Accountability - in an age of false reasoning

 

all too often, it's all too easy to slip into the lie - yes brother, you know what i'm about to put out here.  "gimme a high five!  toss me another beer".  lies are convenient, quick and brings about immediate results - RELIEF!   life is difficult.  lies often get us to where we want to go quicker and with a lot less hassle - to circumvent the shit that get's in the way.  rules?  fuck the rules.  rules were meant to be broken.  rules of engagement? - bullshit!  i make my OWN rules!  yeah that's right. i'm not the problem - YOU are the problem.

ah - that was easy - too easy

  

tips and tricks

we men learn to hide and lie at an early age - tips and tricks - from our forefathers.  it's all in the timing - exit stage right (when no one is looking).  "shit -  incoming pressure - launch default - code sequence - alpha charlie one - ABORT -  get me out of here"!   ah daddy - you were THE master manipulator of deception and delusion, an elusive slippery eel - squishy and transparent - an aging ally in denial and i loved you.  most importantly, you sir ... were an excellent educator who taught me well.  i'm ready for my next lesson.  where are you?

this is a common theme.  it touches most men deeply, though most would prefer not to think about it.  that fear, shame and blame all so meticulously incubated, in the juggled dark cracks of our empty underworld - in the slivers of distant recollections and entrenched in our institutions.  you see - our fathers actually believed their lies and created their own religion, and continued the experiment - blessing their willing innocent disciples to seed, where we fertilize and familiarize.  it's working.  it's DONE!  it's crazy thinking back on my childhood.  where's dad?  


gone

even when he was around he was still gone.  no love - no care.  scared away.  the burning question is ... why?
 

contagion

my dad actually BELIEVED that it was totally ok to be unaccountable to anyone but himself - and even that was sketchy - kind of pathetic actually, but it's all he knew - i mean that's what he picked up as a kid himself from the men around him at the time - "it's a cruel world son".  what are you talking about?  the contagion seamlessly passed from generation to generation.  storm on the horizon.   why does everything have to suck?

i could never see it coming - until it was too late.  it was in all those simple sermons, lectures  - drenched in the patriotic prose, the presumptuous posterings and in the reluctant rhetoric ... here it comes again - and again ...

"good guys?  finish LAST"!  he would often say to me as a kid myself.  "get used to it - get with the program" - baby branded - and so ... in a single thrust of unconscious narcissistic masturbation, my dad succeeded in alienating everyone around him - his friends and relatives, employers, wife and family / his sons - from ever wanting anything to do with him and died alone.  but alas - the perfect victim in a perfect crime - the liar - the thief - the displaced shadow magician and the tormented martyr.   the self inflicted "torture" ... the measures and the counter measures -  all justified in an empty thread of addicted avoidance - taught to him ever so eloquently and with immaculate precision - by his father ... handed down by his father before him - and so on.  strategic - clockwork.

genetically pioneered insanity

and in the ongoing chaos that we call home ...

i often think of what it would have been like - to have had a father who actually cared about himself.  what that would have brought about.  the benevolent, intuitive guidance, idealized on TV and in movies - carefully woven in reflective self-discipline and determination - that passion / desire, to "get it right".  to raise the stakes in integrity and deliverance.
 

in the lies, the deception and yes ... destruction, you would think that one might learn what the difference is between resistance and resolve.  i think it's a no-brainer but my demons remain - in a dark thunderstorm surrounding my cerebral hemorrhage, the moment comes and goes.

- Default

failure to act; inaction or neglect, ie. They lost their best chance - to make a real difference - by sheer default.
 

  

maybe later

.

we either get it or we don't ... i still don't get it
and most men around me who "think" they get it - don't
ultimately, it's in the clues and sign-posts we encounter along the way 
left in our legacy - for now ...


we still have a choice to make in this moment - to live or to die

decided

it's all in the choices.  i choose to live

dedicated to Glen James - G.J. (Jim) LaMarche
(centre)

 

email:  jimlamarche@sympatico.ca


these clips below are natural extensions on the theme ...
this blog was inspired by my childhood experiences and by the book  -
"prisons we choose to live inside" by doris lessing.