Concerning Resistance to Repression in Our Current Age (With a Peculiar Digression into the Realm of the Proboscis)

The mechanism of repression and control are evident in every aspect of life in the 21^st century.  What we eat, how we communicate, who we vote for, how we entertain ourselves, and the like, are all completely programmed by our true overlords.  They want us to think that we have freedom of choice, and, indeed, we do perhaps in the most innocuous of matters.  But in the things that really count, freedom and self-determination are myths—illusions created by those in control to give the semblance of democracy and prevent open revolt.

And we, like the docile creatures that we are—more like cattle than puppies, because at least puppies become dogs and eventually develop fangs that can be used for self-defense—willingly agree to our own abject servitude.  We go through the motions of living, but we are not really alive; for to be truly alive is to be self-determined, to have a vision of the good life that is uniquely our own, and to act at times capriciously, wantonly, even imprudently, simply because we choose to do so.   And we have none of these abilities any longer.   

Dissent, resistance, and revolt are impossible, because the mechanisms of control are so total, so all-pervasive, that the dissenter would be annihilated before he utters the first word of critique.  And far from being able to count on the support of his fellow citizens, the dissenter would be carried over to judgment and tribulation by his own neighbor and his own child.   He stands alone, and therefore he stands in ruin. 

It is madness, then, to challenge the control of the elites, but it is equal madness to allow oneself to become part of the herd, to lose the only power that we have left as human beings—the ability to internally dissent and thus retain some small shred of our original autonomy.   And so I dissent, and in doing so, proclaim as loudly as any revolutionary that I am free, and will remain so as long as I refuse to give in to the overlords control over the workings of my soul. 

But what form shall my personal dissent take?  Curled toes and snarling lips are overplayed: the overlords would recognize them immediately as symbols of revolt.  The raised pinkie and furrowed eyebrow are too subtle: they could as easily bespeak a “come-hither” insinuation as a challenge to the status quo.  No, if there is to be true internal revolt, it can only be symbolized by the nose. 

The nose.

The nose.
The nose.

The nose.  It is so conspicuous, but so filled with mystery.  It sits happily on the surface of our faces, yet it is the true window to our human souls.  With every breath we take, the outer world mingles with the inner, the mundane realm conjoins with the spiral.  The nose is also the ultimate symbol of contempt for authority: I thumb my nose at you, I raise my nose in disgust at your malfeasance, I blow my nose in your general direction as the ultimate manifestation of my hatred for you. 

And so I create nose art.  And in creating nose art, I free myself from the control of the overlords.  I create nose art and I become the free man that I was born to be.   I create nose art and I expose my potestas animi  (my vital spiritual power) brazenly for all to see.

And thus with the nose, ends all tyranny!