The hunger for more

I have lost my appetite
for many things.
Many things
of which I thought they had 

various degrees of importance
at one point or another.

Some seemed vital
even though they now are
less than irrelevant.
Immaterial.

Ever since I embarked
on this makeshift voyage
of letting go,
ever more things
have lost their appeal.

Their lush intent, 
once so clear
and apparent
and charming
to me,
just faded.

I’m looking forward to
reaching twice my current age
to experience
the quality of disinterest
I have accomplished.
Will I be
abundantly empty?
Or will I just realise
how foolish my pursuit has been?
Will I have replaced it all
with another artifice?

Up to a certain,
and I can’t remember which,
age
I pined and craved
for more.
I was in constant search
of something definitive
but grossly undefined.
Even though my mind
was reasoning along
a more moderate
even minimalistic
path,
my deeper subconscious being
was tacitly in control,
as it is in most of us.

So I looked
and looked
everywhere
but as my reasoning mind
already knew,
there was nothing
to be found.

All along
it was not a matter of finding
but of finding out,
as I found out
leaving those
mighty material parts of me
behind.

Don’t
misunderstand me,
I’m not
denying my nature
or anything like that.
I’m just peeling off
the surplus.

I’m in that place
where desolation has attained
a rich flavour
that I like
and for which I have
developed a new kind of hunger.

My version of a bio

My recently discovered
American connection Daniel Miess
asked me to write a bio
so there’d be some reference to
the posts of my work he may be including
in his poetry project.
(Don’t feel obliged, by the way, Daniel.
I know that most of my work
would not qualify as poetry when scrutinised)
I’ve written some biographies
in the past.
Mostly for one of the bands
I was playing in.
And next to doing performance video shoots
it’s probably one of my most hated parts
of being in a band.
But it has to happen,
because the audience wants to relate
to the musician
or to the author
or to the artist.
But you have to understand that
it really sucks to be at the centre of things
when you are actually too introverted
to occupy such a space.
It was never the reason I started writing
or making music.
Quite the opposite really.
Because I don’t like it at all,
I will do it in the only form
that will give me some fulfilment.
Here goes:
I’m a Belgian.
We have been in the news recently
since this tiny speck of a country
with its square footage of 11,787 square miles,
appears to be the hub of all terrorist sleeper cells
on the European continent.
We’ve always been a transit country for commerce,
why not for radicalist idiots.
(To give you an idea,
this country is just a tad smaller
than the state of Massachusetts.)
I was born in the creepy town of Mechelen
and lived there until the age of 21.
I moved a few miles up north to Antwerp later.
A small move, but it made a big difference,
providing more anonymity. 
My interest in writing started quite early on.
I had always been interested in story-telling
and I still have some cassettes
from when I was 4 or 5,
with recorded invented stories
about animals in anthropomorphic interactions.
Family life and silly adventures.  
Growing a bit older I started writing short stories
for myself which I all threw away.
It was the action of writing that pleased me,
not the reading
and I would certainly never show them to anyone.
I got horribly embarrassed when my mother
would dig them out of the trash.
I didn’t want her praise.
I didn’t want anyone’s praise.
But I wrote.
Not great stuff,
but the desire to dream-up things was strong.
The real kick came when I was about 11 or 12,
reading my first English book.
I wish it had been
something deep
and impressive
and way beyond my years
but it was ‘The Day of the Triffids’ by John Wyndham.
The cover spoke to me
and I still remember being sucked into the story.
That’s the first time I remember thinking:
I want to do this.
Up until today,
I haven’t.
Not really.
I studied journalism
but started working in
marketing and communications.
A job that doesn’t suit me at all
but which, nonetheless, I’m quite good at.
Parts of it, at least.
Either way
from the age of 16
all through college
and right up to this point
(I’ll be 40 in May)
I’ve been singing in bands.
Not for the audience
but for the writing.
Writing lyrics allowed me to write
without spending weeks or months on a story.
It also forced me to ‘finish’ the work
and be concise 
because other people were waiting for me,
depending on me.
It had the added bonus of allowing me to be
highly emotional, abstract
and even extreme with my use of words.
A great way to explore the limits
of what writing can do
and a great way to find your fist.
Some things just come naturally,
and those are the ones I’m looking for.
An extension of the subconscious,
using a conscious technique.
To each his own
and this is absolutely my thing.
My writing has adopted this lyric style
to an extreme extent.
Even though it looks a lot different,
the intent is the same.
I just let it go.
Sometimes it will read like a journal
on other days there will only be abstract thoughts
or seemingly random words on a page
(which they are not).
And anything in between.
To me, writing is
an expression of my freedom, first.
Something to be read, second.
I don’t (and never will) care about form
or spelling or grammar or punctuation.
But I can imagine some of the more technical writers
would shun me for that.
I understand your point,
but I truly don’t care at all.
I have debated this point with others
claiming that this makes me ‘not a writer’.
All I can say to that is:
I write, don’t I.
I never claimed that
I would make a living out of it
or be published
or even be read.
But still
That doesn’t make me less of a writer.
It makes me an unsuccessful writer.
But maybe more of a writer
than some of the really successful ones
since success is often the poorest indicator of quality.
But to answer the questions
that tend to be raised by the term ‘biography’:
Belgian.
Born in 1976.
Musician, singer, songwriter since 1992.
Writing other things since 2010.
Unpublished, because 
that’s what self-published really is.
There’s a blog: https://irsinkast.org/ *
and there’s about 5 copies left of
my ‘essay on poetry: Juniver’
I’m a huge Bukowski fan
for all the right reasons
but many other books
have shaped my freedom writing style.
I love being influenced
and building on that.
That about sums it up.
More about me can be learned by reading my work
or listening to the albums on http://thequiettapes.bandcamp.com/
* Irsin Kast is a pen name
and my fully established alter-ego.
Irsin is derived
from the German word ‘Irrsinn’,
which can be translated as insanity or madness.
Kast is the Dutch word for ‘Closet’,

just a word I happen to like.

Feedback for The School Of Life

When The School Of Life,
which I absolutely love,
asks me to fill out a survey,
I fill out the survey.
One of their questions
was whether I had any feedback
for them.
Here’s what I had to say to that:
“No feedback,
only questions
from my troubled mind.
How can we use
our power as consumers
to effectuate change
and put real pressure
on the elite that organises
and benefits
from our consumption?
How can we,
as consumers and fans,
truly motivate
our popular linchpin figures
to actually use their position
to influence
both producers
and consumers
towards social fairness
and ecological awareness?

The tools for influencing these mechanisms
seem to be in place
but there is no one
with a working plan
to move people
away from their personal profiling needs
and direct them towards
a unified response
to the ruling economic
and political mayhem.
I believe that TSOL could be
one of those linchpins
and formulate a credible theory
and design a practical roll-out strategy
that could actively motivate people.
‘Pay-it-forward-3.0’
and global-referenda-tooling
kind of stuff.
Tools to unify
and clarify
where the basic needs
of all humans intersect,
no matter what their background
and heritage may be,
and on which economy
and policies
should be based.
And tools that allow people
to pay-it-forward
on a personal level,
to supplement the work
of charity organisations
and NGOs.
Something real
and unifying. “
I truly wish I was smarter
and my mind was better organised
and that I had higher energy levels
to do more in this entire process.
But I will do what I can
and I will try to do
even more than that. 

The initial shock

I could say I am shocked
but all of this
did not come unexpected
at all.
Depressed as I may be,
it was no surprise.

To most,
the closer to home it hits
the clearer the sound
of the turmoil
and the greater the need
to express outrage.
I do not want to downgrade
any of the recent events
but I sure as hell won’t let you
do that to any of the others
by cutting the line
to get retribution 
for your personal pain.
For our collective pain.
If we truly believe in peace for all
then there can be no favourites
nor hierarchy.
I have always aimed not to let
myself be overly influenced
by the laws of proximity
in judging the morality
and the atrocity of man.
But I must admit that
especially now,
this is proving very hard indeed.
I am affected,
as a human
and as a friend of those
that are even closer to the core.
I am looking at our small world
and hoping that we can
transform these feelings
of outrage
and disgust
into a driving force of change.
A change that starts
with our own feelings,
attitudes
and actions.
A force that is unfettered
by the false hypocrisies
of power
in economics
and religion.
To produce governments
that serve us all equally
as humans,
rather than crunching data
and crushing souls
for the money machine.
To convert all religions
to individual convictions
rather than murderous powerhouses,
serving only,
again,
the money machine.
Freedom is absolute
and only limited
by the freedom of others.
So by definition
it is not boundless.
It is a coherent harmony
of all our freedoms.
If we gradually learn to want
only what we really need
these boundaries
should never feel restrictive
but always abundantly fair.

Freedom is the sum of us all
that will constantly transmute
as our numbers grow
to press us ever closer together,
as our planet shifts
to increase the interdependence
of us all
and everything else too.
It is in the astral planes
and the quantum fields
but also sitting right next to you.
For you to really see it
and not just look at it.
It is a switch
only you can flick.

Aim high

I am no altruist. And I would not take pride in being one either. Humans have a natural state that makes us all savvy individuals as much as a mindless herd. An ambiguity I lovingly embrace. But the things I would like to see happen for humanity and the planet in general might have an altruistic ring to them.
I wish humans would become more aware of each other and actively work at a balanced planet. Because even if you are a total bastard you have to realise that none of us can eventually survive without it. And in the most obscured regions of your consciousness and on your clearest of days, you must also recognise that every decision you make, every day, has an impact on that balance. As inconsiderable as that impact may be to you, its bearing is quite real and present.
Some and maybe most people, on a global scale, are unquestionably in a position so precarious that they can not afford to spend time, energy, money or whatever on meditating these decisions. When you are a mother in Syria, carrying your bullet riddled child to some flimsy makeshift hospital, you don’t really care about the specific human rights infringements on some poor Chinese kid that may be sewing overpriced sneakers at a below living standard wage; or for the wanton degree of pollution some chemical conglomerate is most definitely spilling into our biotope at the moment, threatening the extinction of a moth. Or maybe you care a lot more than those that have the luxury to leisurely ponder these deliberations because you can feel the bitter sting of injustice in your own life and in your own right.
The point is that we see billions of people, which are way too many for this planet to start with, being oppressed by a fraction. The elite, as we have come to call them. But this choice league only lives, survives and thrives by the grace of the masses. By the inability and unwillingness of the vast multitudes of humans to react and oppose. The elite is not ‘privileged’ or ‘selected’ at all. It has viciously clawed its way to the top and this is and has always been at the expense of all of us. There are some direct casualties, but most are suffering indirectly, and to a vast variety of degrees.
When judged on sheer karmic law, the west deserves every ounce of hatred it is being dealt. We have been openly enforcing our colonial mind-set on the rest of the world for ages. Loudly announcing to bring civilisation, democracy and even the only true godliness to the alleged barbaric heathens of the east and the south. Explain to me how such a benevolent design has included only the revolting tactics of warring, raping, looting and pillaging. We have robbed the world blind. Or we have allowed our elite to do so because we were dealt some meagre scraps to fulfil our basic needs of food, shelter and security. Submitting ourselves to a new kind of middle class slavery, we became suddenly incapacitated to care about others or the balance we so sorely need. Snouts in the trough, guzzle, guzzle. Make no mistake we are most certainly being farmed.
When I was younger I used to think that this made us, in the west, the worst of all. But as I look at my own life, I see that we are all debilitated. Scarcely alive and disfigured in a mutilated democracy, where the people have no more say at all, where politics have become the sickest travesty imaginable, because our elected protectors and governors are the flaccid henchmen of the monsters.
For some, the cuts have been sealed, many others, see the elite pissing on their lacerations, keeping the wounds wet, open and festering. Either way, we are all without arms or legs or voices and therefore we can no longer shake our fists, march in protest, or cast a real vote. We are paralysed by caste and vigorously led to accept that there is no transcending the barriers set by this paradigm. An excellently executed elitist strategy, indeed.
How can we take the power back? Our ambition should always be aimed straight at the top. To destroy, and I mean provoke, oppose, assault, annihilate and eradicate the elite. Giving them no reprieve, leaving no safe ground, allowing no escape. Go beyond politics, for the heart of the world-wide power structures: the conglomerates and alliances that supersede all national economics, politics and interests. The global players.
Unattainable, you say? I am convinced that the strategic distance the elite sustains and widens to separate themselves from the masses, is both their greatest strength and weakness. If we ever could choose to wilfully act and react, we wouldn’t even need to leave our homes for revolution. No bloodshed. No marches. No protests. As we are oppressed and enslaved by consumption, so can we be liberated by it.
But we will need the will to see, to learn, to understand where the linchpins of the machine are and how feasibly and actually we could turn things around.
It is a shame that in the will-department, we tend to fail miserably. Another human ambiguity I lovingly embrace: the turbulent mass of ill-fabricated desires, counterpoised by a devastating indolence. While insatiably consuming ourselves into extinction, I know that most of us won’t lift a finger, awaiting some ridiculous notion of a messiah to absolve us of any responsibility.

That, my friends, is the biggest sin of all.

The naive fatalist

I’m not doing anything.
And I could be.
You pointed out correctly
that the options are legion.
I could subscribe to any
of those thousands of
good and worthy causes
that lie scattered across the globe.
I could be picketing.
I could stop finding excuses.
I could stop holding back.
And stop pretending it all
has to be on my terms
in order to work.

Just as much as the masses
have proven to be a senseless blob
that doesn’t want to adapt
to our changing circumstances,
those smalls stabs at charity
have proven remedial at best,
especially and specifically
because of their distributed nature.
There is nothing that genuinely unifies.
And while I will raise my contribution
to one or more of the earnest causes
and launch my drop into the parched soil,
hoping for an ocean,
I will remain unsatisfied
in that larger expanse
of meaning and fulfilment
that should help us truly understand
and know each other better
and deeper.

This naïve illusion
that we call spiritual harmony
and which leads us to make
all of our life’s choices
in the larger light of the common good.
A pool of thoughts that expands beyond
the limits of our own species
to reach and cater the needs of all life
with a special focus on universal balance.
An arrogance that is nothing short
of what a prophet would proclaim
but free from those kinds of ambitions
and certainly free
from the revolting insanity
of all organised belief systems
that deeply contradict
all of those values.
A revolting string of organised religions
to which principles I’m very sure
none of your prophets
would subscribe to.

But where does that leave me?
What will I aspire to do?
And which outcome do I envision?
All very good
but also very human questions.
How the hell should I,
as the littlest of humans,
know the answers to questions
that outreach the grasp of all humans combined.
But that doesn’t make any of it
less necessary.
And I believe that deep down
I don’t care about the contours of the questions
or the comprehensiveness of the answers.
And I certainly don’t want to lose time
pursuing them.
I just feel, for myself,
that something vaguely along those lines
needs to be explored
for someone better and smarter
and less conflicted
to pick up where I have to leave it.

I don’t believe that striving
for something unimaginable
is a useless activity.