Not-so-surprising Kindred Words
From the liner notes of "The Flaming Lips: The Day They Shot a Hole in the Jesus, EGG, The Priest Driven Ambulance Album, Demos and Outtakes 1989-1991":
Waitin' for my ride Jesus is Floatin' Outside
My next door neighbor (name withheld) is a lot of things. But one thing, for sure, he is not - is a music connoisseur. He knows that I'm in a band and that's the only reason he has some of our records. He is the typical "Born to be Wild" - drugs and jail - one foot in the grave - kind of rock 'n' roller. And one day while I was out on the back drive-way putting together the space station he came over to borrow a drill or something and we got talking. We must have been conversing about the "Christmas on Mars" set I was building when he surprisingly said "I like that religious album you guys did." ... "Oh," I said. Not one to lead anybody on "That's not a religious album, - we're just using the name 'Jesus' in our songs." ... My reply seemed to momentarily confuse him. "Hmmmm?"... But he quickly got back to what he intended to talk about and not much more of any significance was exchanged. But after he left I did think about this awkward confrontation and how, really, he had every right to be confused... Even now when I speak of it there is a delicate logic that borders on schizophrenic dualism - let me explain....
I had wholly rejected the idea of religion when I was seventeen. But, in hindsight, I didnt' really know what it was I had so easily dismissed.
It was aroudn this time of 1988-1989, I was 27 or 28 when I began to understand and appreciate how useful and how genius this invention of God, Jesus and any form of sacred submisison truly was. The humbling capacity of worshipping something more powerful than yourself and the unquestioning moral structure it rewarded you with were both aspects of religion that I once pointed out as signs of weakness - I now looked at as simple human needs. The sesire to believe is so intinctual and so pleasurable that for most people it's never challenged. But I had challenged it and decided to side with science. Easy for a seventeen year old - much tougher for a twenty-seven year old... The temptation to retreat to a world of angels and demons intensifies as one experiences the meaninglessness and evil of reality. The more one understands reality the more one is consoled by this ingenious fabrication... ..However, I could not, once knowing the truth, go back to, what would have been, a more comforting lie. ... So as I walked into the increasingly bleak, godless horizon - a tinge of regret would be attached to my resolve... I was resigned to believe in only "the real" .. But I longed to be immersed in the "Guiding Light"...
God Walks Among us Now!!
You see we were struggling to believe in ourselves and maybe you have to believe in other things besides yourself before you can believe in yourself... Maybe like playing someone else's songs - before you can see any merit in your own songs. So you see when we sang "Waitin' for my ride - Jesus is floating outside - shine on Sweet Jesus on me" we weren't expressing a believe in Jesus or God, or any Higher Power - we were expressing a belief in... believing... To try to come to terms with what believing means and use it to create ourselves. And as we attempted this, we discovered that truly all meaning is subjective and, in a sense, a fabrication - that we weren't right and they weren't wrong - it was the same thing. And this was frightening and perplexing - science should've easily proved to be a more worthy master... but no... You see as we were re-exploring the idea of allowing oneself to be "guided by the light" we found it unexpectedly rejuvenating and again saw the power of religion equal to the power of the cosmos...!!!... What could this mean...??? Not believing something has designed you, forces you to design yourself??? Fuck that. I do not say it as a matter of pride "I have invented myself"... so what - everybody invents themselves - only we had to do it in a moment of despair before we disappeared inside youselves... And in a blazing time-encapsuled instant, we chose, out of panic, to accept that we are descended from stars not built from the molecules of Christ. And if religous folks could submit to "GOD" because he's great and powerful that perhaps we could submit to "the Universe" because it's great and powerful - We made an exchange... (which is the only way - insanity surely awaits those desperate souls who are suspeded for too long inbetween) - we had lost the lord but gained the world... So instead of looking up and seeing Heavan and its endles possibilities and saying "there must be God" - we looked up and saw.. the Universe and its endless possibilities and thought... the Universe has made us... Yep... But the rest is up to us...
-Wayne (Coyne), June 2002
This was a surprising random reasing for me tonight, while I've had this CD for years, I finally decided to read the insert and while I'm aware of Wayne's views, having him sum them up so directly was amazing, as is how much in alignment my views are to those above. In my conceptualization of Taoism I havne't ruled out the existance of dieties but feel that, if they exist, they aren't directly concerned with humanity. But where does that lead? As pointed out above, there is a very reassurring feeling when you believe there is something more important than you looking after, or more importantly, caring, about you. It would be nice to ask for help every now-and-then, it would be great to think that there is an-overall driving purpose to all of this, that bad things happen for a reason. But these are not comforts I can enjoy, I had the realization of a vast uncaring Universe from an ealry age. I honestly tried Catholicism and later Neo-Paganism to make sense of this to no avail. In all my experiences I could sense a great overall power or flow to the Universe but not guided paths to "salvation" or "perfection" or even if these things existed. Of course, when I first read the Tao Te Ching I had a "coming home" experience and thus is why I call myself a Taoist. While I certainly can't speak for Wayne, but for me Tao and Universe are interchangeable. But, again, this doesn't mean the Universe gives a rat's ass about me, it is very humbling and, at times, depressing. Bad things happen and I am left alone to deal with them. Of course, I have the teachings of Taoism to reflect on during such times, but the Universe doesn't care if I survive the situation or not, it continues on its way regardless. It is up to me to try to keep up and keep sane without the use of a religous framework to fall back on. Very lonely, as the last week has shown me, very easy to slip and go backwards, but to me, it is also very rewarding. The longer and deeper I go into my Taoist studies, the surer I become that this is the right path for me. Of course, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it can be hard as hell, having to rely on youself while at the same time losing youself in the infinite yet try to retain enough to continue to function in the day-to-day world, that's a real bitch. But this wasn't the point of this post, Wayne's comments were and those have long been typed, time for me to try to get to sleep...
Edit/Update: alright, got to share with you guys the first think I saw after posting the above message, very fitting perhaps:
Waitin' for my ride Jesus is Floatin' Outside
My next door neighbor (name withheld) is a lot of things. But one thing, for sure, he is not - is a music connoisseur. He knows that I'm in a band and that's the only reason he has some of our records. He is the typical "Born to be Wild" - drugs and jail - one foot in the grave - kind of rock 'n' roller. And one day while I was out on the back drive-way putting together the space station he came over to borrow a drill or something and we got talking. We must have been conversing about the "Christmas on Mars" set I was building when he surprisingly said "I like that religious album you guys did." ... "Oh," I said. Not one to lead anybody on "That's not a religious album, - we're just using the name 'Jesus' in our songs." ... My reply seemed to momentarily confuse him. "Hmmmm?"... But he quickly got back to what he intended to talk about and not much more of any significance was exchanged. But after he left I did think about this awkward confrontation and how, really, he had every right to be confused... Even now when I speak of it there is a delicate logic that borders on schizophrenic dualism - let me explain....
I had wholly rejected the idea of religion when I was seventeen. But, in hindsight, I didnt' really know what it was I had so easily dismissed.
It was aroudn this time of 1988-1989, I was 27 or 28 when I began to understand and appreciate how useful and how genius this invention of God, Jesus and any form of sacred submisison truly was. The humbling capacity of worshipping something more powerful than yourself and the unquestioning moral structure it rewarded you with were both aspects of religion that I once pointed out as signs of weakness - I now looked at as simple human needs. The sesire to believe is so intinctual and so pleasurable that for most people it's never challenged. But I had challenged it and decided to side with science. Easy for a seventeen year old - much tougher for a twenty-seven year old... The temptation to retreat to a world of angels and demons intensifies as one experiences the meaninglessness and evil of reality. The more one understands reality the more one is consoled by this ingenious fabrication... ..However, I could not, once knowing the truth, go back to, what would have been, a more comforting lie. ... So as I walked into the increasingly bleak, godless horizon - a tinge of regret would be attached to my resolve... I was resigned to believe in only "the real" .. But I longed to be immersed in the "Guiding Light"...
God Walks Among us Now!!
You see we were struggling to believe in ourselves and maybe you have to believe in other things besides yourself before you can believe in yourself... Maybe like playing someone else's songs - before you can see any merit in your own songs. So you see when we sang "Waitin' for my ride - Jesus is floating outside - shine on Sweet Jesus on me" we weren't expressing a believe in Jesus or God, or any Higher Power - we were expressing a belief in... believing... To try to come to terms with what believing means and use it to create ourselves. And as we attempted this, we discovered that truly all meaning is subjective and, in a sense, a fabrication - that we weren't right and they weren't wrong - it was the same thing. And this was frightening and perplexing - science should've easily proved to be a more worthy master... but no... You see as we were re-exploring the idea of allowing oneself to be "guided by the light" we found it unexpectedly rejuvenating and again saw the power of religion equal to the power of the cosmos...!!!... What could this mean...??? Not believing something has designed you, forces you to design yourself??? Fuck that. I do not say it as a matter of pride "I have invented myself"... so what - everybody invents themselves - only we had to do it in a moment of despair before we disappeared inside youselves... And in a blazing time-encapsuled instant, we chose, out of panic, to accept that we are descended from stars not built from the molecules of Christ. And if religous folks could submit to "GOD" because he's great and powerful that perhaps we could submit to "the Universe" because it's great and powerful - We made an exchange... (which is the only way - insanity surely awaits those desperate souls who are suspeded for too long inbetween) - we had lost the lord but gained the world... So instead of looking up and seeing Heavan and its endles possibilities and saying "there must be God" - we looked up and saw.. the Universe and its endless possibilities and thought... the Universe has made us... Yep... But the rest is up to us...
-Wayne (Coyne), June 2002
This was a surprising random reasing for me tonight, while I've had this CD for years, I finally decided to read the insert and while I'm aware of Wayne's views, having him sum them up so directly was amazing, as is how much in alignment my views are to those above. In my conceptualization of Taoism I havne't ruled out the existance of dieties but feel that, if they exist, they aren't directly concerned with humanity. But where does that lead? As pointed out above, there is a very reassurring feeling when you believe there is something more important than you looking after, or more importantly, caring, about you. It would be nice to ask for help every now-and-then, it would be great to think that there is an-overall driving purpose to all of this, that bad things happen for a reason. But these are not comforts I can enjoy, I had the realization of a vast uncaring Universe from an ealry age. I honestly tried Catholicism and later Neo-Paganism to make sense of this to no avail. In all my experiences I could sense a great overall power or flow to the Universe but not guided paths to "salvation" or "perfection" or even if these things existed. Of course, when I first read the Tao Te Ching I had a "coming home" experience and thus is why I call myself a Taoist. While I certainly can't speak for Wayne, but for me Tao and Universe are interchangeable. But, again, this doesn't mean the Universe gives a rat's ass about me, it is very humbling and, at times, depressing. Bad things happen and I am left alone to deal with them. Of course, I have the teachings of Taoism to reflect on during such times, but the Universe doesn't care if I survive the situation or not, it continues on its way regardless. It is up to me to try to keep up and keep sane without the use of a religous framework to fall back on. Very lonely, as the last week has shown me, very easy to slip and go backwards, but to me, it is also very rewarding. The longer and deeper I go into my Taoist studies, the surer I become that this is the right path for me. Of course, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, it can be hard as hell, having to rely on youself while at the same time losing youself in the infinite yet try to retain enough to continue to function in the day-to-day world, that's a real bitch. But this wasn't the point of this post, Wayne's comments were and those have long been typed, time for me to try to get to sleep...
Edit/Update: alright, got to share with you guys the first think I saw after posting the above message, very fitting perhaps: