Bureaucratic. Timocratic.
Stratocracy is not something
I was ever interested in. Is that
why I enlisted? Put these notions
to the test, challenge my philosophy,
And perhaps even to change my worldview
which I had assumed was in opposition to this.
The institution, a cult of state
before which I am canine.
The use of drill, to temper a group dynamic
and meld the pack, to subordinate individuals'
and suppress reactions, to tame critical thinking.

A dog of the state
should not be able to question so well,
My philosophical training may prove most troublesome.

Is this discipline without clear intention,
Values that lack coherent articulation,
The inheritance of a moral order
which is antiquated at best
or at worst entirely ill-suited
to the modern world.

If this is the soil from which
the crop of leaders are chosen
it's no surprise what's to follow.

What truly strikes me is the humor,
Which sometimes is incomprehensibly forced,
but as they say: hurry up and wait.

Struggle to attain such peace,
The heavens open,
Smile in the soaking rain.

Our practices must be underscored
by a narrative they can be subsumed by
if they are to elicit change

in the person, if they are to fashion personality
or craft personae. "But I am straitened between two:

Having a desire to be dissolved
and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better.

But to abide still in the flesh, is needful for you".
[Pulvis et] umbra sumus.

.Tuam Videbis Vitam.

Strange jealousy
for a past held by another
in painful regard.

I should like to be honest
about our fears, aspirations,
Our dreams, desires.

What we feel and need.
It is hard to accept I am safe,
To accept sanctuary. I built such
walls, became a prisoner to my own
configurations, then escaped and found
I had become a fugitive from heaven,

A cognitive dissident without a cause,
A philosopher who had lost their cogs.
So I tried some O-desmethyltramadol
and was reminded I don't like opioids,
They distort one's self in a most craven way.
My recent use of apotheogen makes it clear

I need some new practices
to sooth the sacred alter
betwixt my temples.

,Look at my shadow,

Sometimes the clouds crowd
my mind, they cast shadows
in which my fires seem more

intense, and sometimes I find
myself uneasy, it is difficult to
sit with the abstract headiness.

I take N-desalkylfluarazepam.
I take 3-Fluoroamphetamine.
I might even take ketamine.

It loosens me up, a sense
of otherness is familiar
and perhaps it is the

possibility of escape
rather than escaping
that give me comfort,

To know the tools are
there, to feel as a ward
of their potential lore.

The questionable house-shares, cramped studios,
Dilapidated granny flats, with bedrooms anywhere
a bed could conceivably fit. There is no dignity
to be found here, nor a notion of feng shui.

Countless hours trawling through ads,
Listings and social media pages,
Innumerable miles traveled to view
places too small, expensive, uninhabitable

or just plain inhospitable.
After a viewing I'd drive back, south
towards the Wicklow mountains, to Bree where

I could rest my head awhile, before my landlord
sells. I will find a place here, oh yes,
This city has it's charms.

Feeling that burnout
but I got the remedy.

Ran several kilometers
with a weighted backpack
on 3-MethylEticyclidine

but I only felt something when
Love Inc. by Booka Shade
played, it reminds me of that feeling,
Freed me up.

**** the gender thing, no one asked to be
born, just wanna live
without abject judgement
for something you never signed up for;
I never really felt I belonged too.

Alas,
una
dabit
quod
negat
altera.

They say, "it's always safer not to take drugs".
What of medicine, what of utility?
There's certainly need for antidotes,
and pain relief and even wakefulness.

They'd amend, "It's safer not to take drugs recreationally",
What of therapy and wholesomeness,
The spiritual aspect or communal element
of mind-expanding or pair- and group-bonding.

I ask, is there a healthy amount of recreational drug use?
Can we perform a hedonic calculus to determine
this amount, per person, per substance?
How do we treat with the ethics
of recreational drug use?
What do we owe
the virtues we have inherited,
How do we reckon with the vices identified?

Is substance exceptionalism ever warranted?
Do we deserve cognitive liberty?
Is such a thing coherent
given I may have become biased

in partaking or abstaining
from those drugs
I endeavor to study.
How do we determine what is pleasurable and right?