#11: Breaking the System from Within a Bar
This is not an actual column of mine.
Just another leftover from yesterday’s bar night. Look at what the writer dragged in!
I was discussing the usual stuff about stuff with a few “High Ranking Politicians” and other drunkards. As usual, we were not really pursuing any one topic. Skylarking flapdoodle was meandering around, seemingly random pieces of discourse passing through our midst, occupying for a short span of time that flat we call our brains. I never had, and still do not have, the perception of feeling my personal identity. I appear to myself as the place where something is going on, but there is no “I”. Anyway: One of the things channeled was the current trouble you miners out there are put through by the council these days. Just because you are proud members of the proud Guild of Miner’s.
Who says you are? Far as I can tell, you are digging for archaeological artifacts of former times, struggling hard to enrich our cumulative knowledge-chest on eras gone by. Granted, most of you are not doing all that well. Being able to read and write would certainly come in handy for a researcher. But science is a lazy old mammoth, moving with geological slowness towards our bright future of mammothlike wisdom. And in this struggle of yours, if you happen to come by any old minerals or crude materials blocking your way, why, certainly they have to be disposed of, so why not sell them to someone willing to pay – you are down there anyway, the funding of expeditions is expensive, hell, it’s a win/win for everyone. So. You see.
Go join the the Archaeologist’s Guild. If there is one, I couldn’t bother myself to check. Otherwise it’s easily being proclaimed. Or think about founding a Treasurehunter’s Guild, in case you are still ACTUALLY searching for that buried wishing-well down in the mines every day.
And the administration will definitely need time to catch up with their regulations! Hell, you can found the Guild of Your Mom!, while you are at it! All you need is some 1000 members and a slice of your time. 10.000 members and you get a representative in the high council, but hey, you can’t have it all!
There.
Obviously, this will disintegrate „the system“: This is Baruch Caan’s golden bullet. Because if it is as easily disintegrated, well… Let’s go for it. And because my golden bullet has a name to back itself up (that’s what a Jawsmith deals with): „Liquid democracy“. Yeah, there’s a whole concept behind it (basically it ought to distribute power on fluid, dynamic levels, that can spontaneously swarm around people as lightly as around guilds or organizations). You can check it up online, I’m too busy working on my ideas as a Guild representative.
Because (now a piece of advertisement:) once you are at the council hall, think about joining the Guild of Jawsmithery (I checked: No rule prohibits you from joining more guilds at the same time). It’s where the Pam! hits the fan! The Guild of Jawsmithery demands 7 minutes of guaranteed uninhibited madness per hour for it’s members! Only 998 more members! A major new player is in town, dear monster/peoplekind!
Or, this is all just a pretty lame joke, since I’m running against a deadline, and there’s nothing else to write about. Or it’s both and none of the above. That’s the beauty of our mastery: Performative self-contradiction got no claim on a Jawsmith! Want to wield that power?
Join the guild!
998, don’t be late!
I am not Fiction (but anything else)
Baruch Caan