l i f e
a request
contributions
christopher@30seconds.org
Justify justification: to yourself.
The question comes over a smoke filled table in Aitch's bar. "Follow me for a minute."
And I trek up around the elevator shaft of the Dixie, my boots going thum, thum, thum, with bell-like resonance on the iron steps. Two flights up we stop by an unfamiliar door...
To justify.
Back down to the bar. I can't sit on the couch, can't stand the stifling heat and the dirt and the beer swells in my head and mixes with the smoke in the room which is far worse than the bar downstairs and I run...to justify.
"Got a pen?"
The radio is loud and it's past closing time, but it's okay, I'm a regular. Known. Tolerated at the tables after closing time.
Justification is proof, fact, truth. I underlined that.
In fact, below is the unedited word for word late night response to the question...justify justification using only yourself. See, my last piece on the subject, though adequate, pressed the next question out of my audience. My. One. Man. Audience.
What proof does the individual need? The individual (I) need to rationalize. Rational is the key. What can be rational? Anything so long as the (I) believes it can be rational. Does faith play? Yes. Faith in the rational (i.e. proof, truth, or fact).
"pride is the illusion I see truth" so how can you get out of the way of pride on an individual basis? Rational law will state that the I must believe (double underline), which is vain. How do I justify an act. Weigh it out. Out. Outside-but this question must rely on introspection only. No outside influence. Think. Justify the act of justification with only (double underlined) I.
Things the mind finds self-evident (environment, upbringing--all outside) can you separate the outside from who you are long enough to justify anything? No. Justification itself is an outside thought, an outside influence. The ultimate justification without using the term relies on (double underline) instinct. Pivotal point.
Must be a thoughtless thought.
Has to be instinctive.
The second you think about the process the (I) begins to weigh on the outside. You have to use anima (another double underline). Internal instinctive beliefs. Animas. Thought of the heart, soul of the world. The only things I can justify are internal actions. I can't press on the outside or I must then rely on the justification of the world around me, whatever the moment may be.
To justify to me, in some cases is to justify to someone else, empathy, but to justify to yourself is pure instinct or anima. The only thing on which the (I) can rely, its internal self. Before pride because pride is a reflection of those around you. The individual needs to pride, throw it out the window, GONE...
Split second. Can't be explained. Right-Left-Up-Down-Fuck-
Tie instinct to anima.
At this point I drew a rough little triangle in the margin and at each point was one letter an F, an S, and a T
That's it. Folded it up in my back pocket and went home. I wrote it on white construction paper in red ink. A Bic pen. I really hate those. But the one thing I did was go back and look at those words I'd underlined twice, and I decided that the rest of the words around them were unnecessary, but since I'm not editing this piece and it was requested in this form I left everything alone. It is as the Whitbread gave me.
Believe.
Vain.
I.
Instinct.
Anima.
goodnight 8.10.98
