The Evolution of I
The Evolution of I
An Illustrated Blog by Johan Salvador Tavares Beato

All these are self-serving, all these mimesis explaining to us what it all means, what’s this new trend? easefully creeping into the new normal. This conditioning constantly twirling up in our face eating our mouth with tasteless noise. You and I, us and them, theirs or ours, what does it take? What does anyone really understand if not their own survival? This duplicitous thing to be altruistic and all the while canonizing your own self. This ulterior spec lurking.

This divinity tied to some doctrinal logic, some ruse to keep these in place, to keep thee safe in the warmth of culture. Of ever dying cultures, mixing into something new every day. Some new development rising, some breaking news, some kind of billowing smoke with missing fires. And I am to imagine myself in the center, in the midst of everything, as if I had a million hands to reach out, a million prayers to blanket the earth! And in the end, peace never comes.

These massive engines of war, this constant web of interchangeable notions, interconnected minds missing their true connection, blocked by some extraterrestrial device, some cube always lurking, some rewarded reprise. Not enough people-focused, not enough intention is given at any given time because everything if things are not self-serving, everything’s in disarray.

Instead of pointing up, we point down. Instead of the eyes, we chose to look elsewhere and bypass the connectors, instead of understanding we misinform, we dance with ourselves and solve the equation of loneliness. The isolationist still needs a crowd, more of the same. But they defeat us…as if we had some kind of magic that we are not allowed to attain. Some kind of spirit equally perfected from the chisel and the hand, eternally attuned to the universal rhythms.

And I am dead, right in the center of it all dead, dead in the middle of these, watching over you, watching over.

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— They don’t know what I’m made of, they don’t understand why I look this way, they don’t understand what I’m about. I don’t wear those things on my sleeves, and sometimes I wish I could. Sometimes I wish it could be obviously known that I am from where I stand, that I am a member of this human race, and that I grew up as happy as I could have been under Caribbean sunshine. I wish it could be plain to see that I became a well-grounded man in these United States of freedom; In the glory of the manifested dream. A native son of the Americas spawned from the Taino tradition mixed with african and European blood; A transplant, ripe with dreams and aspirations. I wish I could go deeper and interject my thoughts and inform them that I mean them no harm, that I am one of them just like everyone else. I wish I could bear the true strength in my eyes so that I could project upon them my sincerity and goodwill.

Where do I stand today? This place doesn’t see me, all it sees is the color of this skin, and the apparent perversion of wearing a beard and being brown.

That I am from these 10 commandments, from this constitution that binds us; Not from pictorial rhetorics on some machine breaking news. But instead, all I sense is fear, fear of me, fear of a foreign invasion, did I come across the wall? did I ride the perpetual caravan? And I am well aware that this could all just be in my head but I can’t help the feeling, this paint-like feeling washed over me by some agenda weaponized with oil and lead, some blissful anecdote made to sway public opinion while generating fear. It could all be so simple, so adequate it would be if I could just pierce through their soul and touch theirs with mine so that they can see that I too am cosmic. So they can experience my rich genetic makeup comprised of all the same things as theirs. That perhaps for a brief moment we could all experience humanity without labels, without this religiosity and this affiliation to things; With the idea that we can all be kings and queens at the same time.

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 Father God, Papa Dios!
Que misericordia? What Delirium?
Este calvario! What insanity!

Que no entiendo, explicame por favor!
Que la gente más religiosas
cargan odio profundo en su corazón
En el mismo corazón de tu imagen
Padre Dios que locura has hecho
Qué justificación tienes tu pa esto?
Que hipocresía como si esto fuera un juego
Un manipuleo, o una ilusión.
Como si yo fuera algo indecente en tus propios ojos.
Corazon de Jesus derrama sobre mi tu sangre!
Qué cosecha de palabras, que profundo el entendimiento.

Que vida vivimos en las nubes
Cuando ya ni las nubes son reales
ESTA JODIENDA ME TIENE QUIYAO
me tiene la mente dispara en un trayecto emocional
En un desplace de desenredo como si tal vez yo regresaría a la sopa primordial.

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 This feeling is weird, like knowing something that shouldn’t be known. Like some sort of psychological jargon jarring the mind. Some kind of make-belief that makes me want to understand what this is all about. This dance of life spinning whichever way it wants but what say do I have? What conclusion plays ahead of this instrumental divinity, is this fate or is this destiny? This ever-expanding web of intrications; This isolationism wants to take me places, to simplify, to make ease of my senses. This net makes us lonely; It makes us forget the true connections. And that could all be just me, this loneliness, it could all be me, alone inside this head of mine, this constant head of mine, interpreting bias, piecing together what it does not know to try and understand the reason for this why.

These means end on their own, these means are just, they seem to reciprocate everlasting but these means are done. Rung dry from the source.

This game is over, as it continues to play, this plot is in a rut, like some rotting flesh, like some zombies rising from the dead with their fangs; Wanting to feast on the brain. Those chunks of knowledge on them nuggets. Them twisty things like they appear all above and beyond like some guilty color, like some Aryan nation from beyond, as if you could even quantify this melatonin, this sun has written right, this darkness is pure like the light, like the whitest of whites. But this light is obscure, like some political angle easily perverted. Like the EVERYTHING that only answers to money, like them structural facts, so fiendishly disputed.

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Here I go again, here I come riding with perplexity, walking in on my self from behind as if I could astral project. And then I see, I see enough to want to cover my eyes and shield my ears from this misguided noise. From this televangelists making constitutional changes, them judges playing televangelists. I seem to not understand, because what I’m trying to comprehend can’t not be swallowed whole. It makes no sense these holy lands, these sacred places made from sticks and stones, lift and you shall find him! between these wars, this slavery. Torned lands with homeless folk. - Tall houses filled with empty seats. No liquid assets in this arid land, these dying cultures. This drop of water will be expensive.

And I walk deeper into myself as I try to put on every shoe, as I try the walk of every person, just to know what it’s like, only to find out that my good intentions are not redeemable in gold. I realize that my prayers can only go as far as the actions i’m willing to take. — That I cannot save anyones life no matter how hard I pray. I can’t see past them papers, I can’t see past them bills, these burning houses. These irregular laws that make no discernable sense while we slowly eat away at this misguided sense of freedom.

Blast them on fine fonts! Print them on divine parchments and let them speaks only of remorse.

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You make me like silence
when I become emotional 

When i share my views of the world
I make you like tears
Like water evaporating in the dead sea

You make me like omission
when you express your view of this world
Like the weight of all the hay upon the needle

I make you like duality

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Tell me

This epoch is obscene
It is perverse how obscure we think
how well off we are behind blanketed opinions
behind intellectually sounding alternative facts
you never heard it from me
you don’t understand
What you saw is not what you think
What you do with your choices is not up to you
We decide, we the men of this republic
The interpreters of truth and logic
The inconceivably blessed

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Inconsistent it has become the inauguration of language. Where language forms are intentions.

How are you? Good! how are you? — How are you? Good! How are you? Rinse and repeat this lovely day. Let’s stop and chat about the weather. No conversation only quick remarks and empty formalities. Let’s keep each other in mind while we keep tabs on everything wild with karmic justice in this cosmical jus. I’d love to hear about it! I miss you! Let’s get together soon! Lost in meaning with no intentions just sound bites to save face. Explaining exploits and hearsay; invaded by fabricated opinions. I’m beginning to see a pattern here, a continuum of synchronistic proportions. Everyone’s heard talking with no one listening. The repetitive motion of all these lives linked via an unconscious collective.



Nothing changes around you that does not pertain to me
I am only the change when I’m introduced to your environment
When I take the first step to initiate contact, you hear from me
I am the engine of how I move through life, I am change introduced.
I am the one who makes the point, the one who pulls.
I am to understand something here, I am to withstand another cycle
—Another rewiring of these coils in my head, these out of sorts antennae.
Tuning in on the fervorous frequencies of these times, this epoch of epics.
All these lines we cross, all these things we say without first thinking.
All these offenses in my face, while I try to not take things personally.
While I try to respect willful ignorance at the expense of my safety.
How else will I know better if I’m not called out on my bullshit,
but I try to be real while I aim at keeping my mouth shut when I don’t know what I’m talking about.



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I was there earlier. I was in my state of mind, the one I like to be in almost every time. I forgot when the trance started but I remember being around the hibiscus. I recall being lost in the blooms from the tomato plants. And in this state of mine, I was once again lost in the abyss, trying to piece together the last few days so that I may understand what I stand for. Much was said, many conversations were had and I replayed them all letter by letter, whie I navigated the streets as if it was my second nature. 26,717 steps made in one day. Round by round as the passages in my mind began to associate the city with the notion of health. I began to notice that perhaps this is all a test, a way to test my loyalty and my diplomacy.

I could have done more but I forgot how vast the distance is when it’s the end of the day, when you have walked for miles in this loopy city hopping around from stop to stop. I could have felt different but the radio got in my head, pacifying me into a lul while I crushed the candy with the churning of steel. While I moved as if I knew precisely where I was going, I could have seen more but I chose to look away, I chose to assume that nothing was my problem when beggars came by. I could see the change, I could see the morphing of this mold while society adapted to itself. All these faces communing with their gazed on the blue light. I wonder how it was way back when we read letters in books or newspapers, we passed the time looking out the window avoiding an awkward stare. We barely looked away from the floor, staring into nothing, sometimes glancing at someone when they weren’t looking. And I wonder how is it any different. I complain to myself that there’s no human interaction but I don’t think there ever was. Things are the same.

I could have said more. I could have gone to the simplest point with my soft voice and denominate this . I should have stood up and begged them to put themselves in his shoes, but we had already been persuaded into someone else’s. I wanted to say so much more but the odds were against me, my fear of speaking got to me, and my understanding of the social dynamics of this group made me realize that regardless of what side I chose I was in the wrong. I was in the middle fully understanding that someone’s feelings were going to get hurt … . I didn’t say enough, I kept myself mostly quiet, I tried to speak whilst silencing myself and the only noises I made were in agreement. When I tried to speak I was accused of being too diplomatic so I shuddered and crawled deep into the grooves of my brain. But there were no sides in this battle, both sides were right in that regardless someone’s feelings were going to get hurt. Everyone was saying the same thing and fighting about it. Like those times you said something and then a second later someone else repeats the exact same thing like an echo, repeated with the same inflation as if both speakers were the authors of the thought. As if the idea generated inside some machine that makes us think the same things at the same time. Or maybe they wanted to take credit, to have the last word as it were before the next random topic starts. “I wanted to see, right through from the other side” I wanted to be in their head to experience what it was they were going through, I wanted to share their pain to figure out whether or not I had been there before. I walked away brushing it all off pretending to be neutral in this made pretend world of loyalty. All the while the city passed me by like a blur. — While the light of the moon faded and morning rose I was still thinking

 

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 You and I cut by the slice by the simple things of life that should unite us

Divide us you loving folk spewing hate in the name of some Jesus

Some kind of parable to justify the cause, some kind of Rapture that will cure away your sins.

Silenced witnesses so that their history be whatever fits the narrative.

I could do all wrong just as long as I do it for this Christ.

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In my most controversial of theories I am only trying to solve equations.
Trying to piece together the meaning of … these. But I guess I am only trying to understand what she told me.

— Those strung words she perhaps repeated like some sermon, maybe she heard them somewhere else and like me she took on their full force when she heard them. She passed on some everlasting worm into my ear. With altruistic intent even, and perhaps … I thought … Maybe all she meant to say is that I should keep an open mind. That I should stand upon some rock signifying some coveted truth easily perverted by the churn of generations, easily converted into biblical jargon to spread the falsehood of these alternative truths. These eye witnesses silenced. This distractionary jeering thinning our hairs. Driving us mad with each bombastic wave, some Low dividing air waves, disrupting these antennae with some unexpected cold. Some magnificent choice perfected. Some pillar erected in the commemoration of the victorious to whom this story belongs to. The deceit of deceivers dividing device with precision. Mark it with sound logic till dog whistles become isms and erases us all with their history, however brief it may have been. This superstitious faith, the you and the I of this divinity we proclaim, them or us in this wholistic endeavour tearing us apart, what’s truly ours or theirs in this duality is the glory of all glories, and I pray we never inherit the quenchiness of chunky water or the ravages of a holy war. —This is what I thought she meant when she said what she said, and I know now that her sound carried more weight that I cared to realize. She stayed with me, and I get the feeling that she always will, in all her incarnations and in all the sounding wisdom she imbued upon me.

 
 
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  But I happen to already be wearing those colors, I happen to already be from foreign lands here on earth. None of me is apparent, nothing about me is obvious, all they may chose to see is the breaking news, depicting a blanket of opinions about national emergencies and invasions of all sort. And I just happen to be, I just happen to look like this person on the newsreels, the invader, the one upto no good. But maybe I’m overreacting. They might actually see the truth in my eyes and understand me. Maybe they’ll notice my fashion, my choice of colors; Maybe while hearing my voice they will also hear my intention, they will be comforted by my ease and understand me some more. Maybe they will see that I am one of them. A human being capable of loving and understanding, selfless sometimes, but only when I have altruistic motives.

…But does it matter? when the bell rings, when the carpet is swiftly pulled from underneath, when someone is heard saying “I told you so” … what will matter most? It will be too late. What will it take? When someone says run for your life, where will I run to?

When will the tension breaks, so swiftly I’ve been deceived, so masterfully have we been lead here, to these times, these awful times of inequality and division. It’s been so easy this slow moving process, this generational shift harkens to Norwellian times. To engineered safety nets weaved into legalized slavery. We the slaves, slaves to money, slaves to medicine, slaves to fleeting joy. But then without any of that, what is life? I love all these things and with these I would not be alive… So what gives? What’s this conundrum, this perplexity makes me want to compartmentalize. To put it all in perspective.

A wise man I once listened to and said that we live in a time where it would be entirely possible that we can all perish by the actions of one single person, but it is also equally possible that we could all unite and solve every single major issue in the world.

But instead, these systems breed only division, we are divided by race, by zip code, by religion, by access to health, by the amount of followers, by experience, by talent, by money.