begin transmission:
the mind reals . . .outside distractions run rampant, and yet the signal to noise ratio is perceptible, if not alterable. the green letters on the screen burn into my mind, the blinking cursor waits patiently for my thoughts to solidify, my convictions to become clear, and my synapses to fire back through my limbs and trunk, up the conduit, meeting other signals conveying their charges, and connect with the flow of life. syphon it out, little by little, turn it into words, try and chisel it into this insubstantial medium. grinning furtively in my mind, like a conspiritor forming his plans. pirate ruminations, transcribed with jesuit precision, or were they private?
consider the switch: i have. it is a device that i have not been able to decipher where it lies on the global scale of HATE vs LOVE. i have, as usuall, been able to run up and down its dichotomy and descerned good and evil presances and premises but as to its intrinsic nature, i cannot guess.since i was young i have been fascinated, or at least mildly amused by, the physics surrounding it. as soon as i understood basic electricity, and the idea of a circuit, the switch was the next logical step. i ripped apart anything broken to get my hands on the pearls contained within.it was like christmas, or a treasure hunt. crack open a box, and you find a rainbow of wires, yellow and blue transistors and diodes, the ubiquitous step up transformer, only 1cm square and capable doubling in output what ever was given to it. all sillowhetted by the glowing green and silver of an integrated circuit board with dabs of solder glistening like dew on a small tree. the life force of the circuit is its power source, yet the flowing current was always taken for granted, and i held no reverence for it. simply take any old lamp, radio, toaster, whatever and hack the cord off of it. instant power source, as soon as you plug it in. but the switch was what made it construction. build a circuit to a bulb and add a power cord, and you have facilitated light. but add a switch in there and you have created a lamp. the switch is the embodiment of control. total control is the end or the underlying motive for the switch user. control over what? electricity? hardly. the soul? perhaps. . .
the man who invented glow-in-the-dark material was truly a visionary. he captured the essence of light and stored it. put it in a jar for later. its application was obviously usefull in a watch. a minor design change to the construction of the hands, and the functionality of the watch was increased ten-fold. but this pure unadulterated assistance for time telling, was not acceptable. it offered no control to the person who, with his vaunted self image as a proto-Chronos, felt diefied enough to carry time on his hand. so take that glow technology, make it switchable, and you have Indiglo! so you dont have that pesky glow in the middle of the night, when it becomes so obtrusive. glow on demand. NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM. the power source becomes less and less important, as long as it has a harness on it. be able to turn the flow on when ever you want, be able to turn it off whenever you want. the politics of the switch.
The fact that the user of a switch holds its power in his hand not only confers him control, but ownership of the switch and the process it enforces. A Wealthy horse mistress has in her stable, a mighty thoroughbred. this is an animal that legends are told about. a powerfull stallion, as tall as a man at its flanks, its musculature taut and spindly, twisting around, and anchored to its frame like the gnarled roots of a sycamore. a beast capable of any herculean feat required of it. The woman takes it out for sunday rides through the country . . . a bridle cinched overly tight, the bit pulled hard agaisnt the teeth, blinders on, the reins keeping the head sharply pulled in against the neck, and spurs digging in as a subtle enforcer. she goes riding, in command of the switch that she has in place, owning the beast which carries her, and somehow garnishing praise and admiration for herself because of it. she cannot however, display the magificence which she has under her control with out loosing her position at the helm of the power. if she were to allow the full fury and power of the horse to run its own course, it would throw her off in its independence.the nature of this need to control, lies hidden.this need for control must be a residual, due to frustration. control of a switch is most rampant in, and perhaps limited to, the inorganic sphere. the correlation could be that there is no switch yet applicable to the organic.
if i were to be stuffed in a bag, i would not be able to move, or see, and could be made not to hear, or smell either. with an IV for nutrition i could survive under those conditions.the person who enacted the situation would seemingly have control in the manner of a switch- were it not for two facts; the politics of the switch dictate a two way interface. on and off. the man who holds the bag closed can easily throw the switch to the off position, but if he does, he destroys the switch.- there is no turning it back on if he accepts that to keep the switch in place, he must keep my body alive, and still persists on enacting a switch on a human, he must endeavor to harness and control some other piece of me. the mind/soul/heart/spirit? what else is there, if his own designs have precluded him from affecting the body? and to what degree can he effect these parts of me? what is the method of discerning whether a switch is in place or not? george orwell suggested that to gain control of a human, you had to make them betray the one thing they held most important. torture will certainly reinforce someone's physical monopoly over you, but the variables of the human condition make it impossible to predict the outcome. a switch-man always knows the outcome of his switch. a human can have any amount of any type of pressure excercised on them, and it may or may not have an effect.. one might succumb to the requests of the pressurer only to alleviate the pressure. can they be said to be held in control? on or off? when ever the switcher desires? existing in the bag may force me to experience frustration to a point i have never imagined before, but the ultimate factor in wether it puts me under someone elses control is based in my mind. i may retain enough of a sense of control to choose to keep my mind my own, or i may be worn to the point where i relinquish it. . .
if a switch is installed on a circuit that is strong enough to contain the current, the current must wait untill the switch is opened, before it can flow. if it is given a chance to circumvent the circuit, and flow along and alternate path, it must flow that way, if it strong enough to destroy the switch, and flow through, completing the circuit on its own, it must. the current cannot hold back when it has a chance to move on, it cannot choose a path, it will always take the one best suited to it. current of human energy is subject to no such laws, and hence, subject to no switch which operates on those laws. if the determined controller takes into account that he cannot kill my body and have an effective switch, nor can he enact a switch on my mind, then he must realize the inability to satisfy the requirements of control where humanity is the current. the aspiring controller must turn to something. nature? too simmilar to humanity, but we try anyway. we make devices that replicate a stream, that we can turn off and on. but ultimately we must move to the sphere of the inorganic. machines, levers, gates, electricity. non-life. people are hoplessly lamenting that they cant get control over their own life. they cannot control life in the least. they can enact death, and that is about as close as it comes. Harness the power of your mind! Take Control of your life! these are the maxims of the charlatains who lead the ignorant down the path of despair.
if the horse was freed of the woman who rode him, would he still
choose to put the harnessess, tack, and bridle on before going out to run?
:end transmission
C. Elliot Friday '9?