HUMOUR: Termite Manifesto

In a message dated 2003:02:15 10.49.03 PM, my shrink "brainmap" writes:

>THE TERMITE MANIFESTO
>
>Why we must practice termite politics
>
>1. When confronted by a rigid structure, a termite knows
>only a simple, local rule to guide it through: Keep chewing.
>
>2. Except in inaccessible and exotic climates, termites
>do not build monuments.
>
>3. Termites feel no obligation to communicate, only to
>not interfere with one another's chewing.
>
>4. The end of the termite's work is inevitable.
>
>5. The path the termite chooses to that end is unpredictable.
>
>6. Although individually a termite is an Ur-mite, collectively
>the termite is mighty.
>
>7. Termites are not dominated by gravity.
>
>8. Termites combine work and play in the same indomitable
>action: chewing.
>
>9. Both the Yin of the termite's ingestion and
>the Yang of the termite's excretion are volatile,
>that is to say, enzymatic.
>
>10. The termite creates negative space from wooden structures.
>
>11. The termite is naturally a perfected evolutionary
>form. Therefore, it has never been eradicated.
>
>12. The termite is just complex enough to get the job
>done.
>
>13. The termite's methods are always guided by
>the structure it inhabits.
>
>14. Termites chew slowly, but in all directions at once.
>
>15. No single termite matters.
>
>16. Termites reproduce themselves.
>
>17. Anything that chews on wood is the termite's
>ally.
>
>18. Termites tunnel from the outside in and from the
>inside out.
>
>19. The Orkin person must always fail when confronted
>by committed termites.
>
>20. The termite's homeland and battleground are
>the same. Thus it is an implacable foe.
>
>21. Termites evolve in such a way so as to minimize the
>forces against them.
>
>22. Termites by their very nature embrace freedom and
>multiplicity.
>
>23. Termites constantly gnaw away at their own boundaries.
>
>24. Termites leave nothing in their wake except traces
>of enthusiastic, assiduous and messy behavior.
>
>25. A termite's project is nothing if not extreme,
>contentious, conflicted and ambivalent.
>
>26. Termites transmogrify politics into politics-as-network.
>
>27. The termite's history is pulp fiction.
>
>28. The termite arena is a multi-dimensional space in
>which a variety of politics, none of them original, blend and clash.
>
>29. Termites (de)center all counter narratives by making
>them true and untrue.
>
>30. Because termite politics is viewed as both a movement
>and a perfume, and, as both an intellectual disposition and
>a bowl of fruit, it has no chance to survive.
>
>31. The current reactionary political climate dominated
>by economies in received forms does not indicate the
>death of termite politics as much as the persistence of
>the market in defining hierarchies of dominance and
>submission.
>
>32. The end of termite politics, of gnawing ever onward,
>is a period of an epoch, the end, completion, conclusion,
>cessation, culmination, closure.
>Or not.
Hanuman Zhang, _Gomi no sensei_ [Master of junk]
& Gatherer of Extremely Enlightening Knowledge (or GEEK, for short ;)

€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€ø,¸¸,ø€º°`°º€€º°`°º€ø,¸~->

    "To live is to scrounge, taking what you can in order to survive. So,
since living is scrounging, the result of our efforts is to amass a pile of
rubbish."
                            - Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, China, 4th Century BCE

    "The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random."
                            - Heraclitus, Greece, 5th Century BCE

    Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.
    [Latin > "Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation."]

"Art is refining and evocative translation of the materials of the world."
                                            -Gwendolyn Brooks

"We do not make art to say what it is, we make art to ask, 'WHAT IS IT?????''
- Robert Wilson

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    [Japanese > "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious artform"]