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From one single idea, everything appeared here

created by Glowing Fish

(idea) by Glowing Fish (2.2 d) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Fri Nov 01 2002 at 5:35:08

On the song Impossible off of the 1996 album Wu-Tang Forever, The RZA, the leader of the Wu-Tang Clan, speaks these words. This particular line occurs in one of the free associating verses combining gnostic space opera with a bit of street tales, something the Wu-Tang is well known for.

I think this line, however, is the lynchpin of the entire verse, and gives a good example of how the Wu-Tang Clan manages to unite cosmology and politics using a single concept. In fact, not only do they use a single concept, but they use the single concept of a single concept. The Wu-Tang Clan's central dillemma (when they choose to address it, which as anyone who has heard the Wu-Tang in less conscious and more playful moments can vouch that they don't always) is to reintegrate black consciousness into reality. Black consciousness was disrupted by the diaspora, which is much more than a geographical process. Being dispersed means that any standard used to be able to judge what is going on around you is merely a relative measure, an illusion placed upon you by either ignorant or malevolent forces that have ways that will leave you both ignorant of your true condition and unable to reach any state of peace or prosperity.

With only a random mixture of structures and institutions, such as the American criminal justice industry and pop culture industry to guide you, there is no way possible to get any firm fix on the world above you. The only way to reach a point where anything makes sense is to get some kind of transcedent concept that explains what is really going on around you.

What exactly this concept is is not always that important. Many systems of belief use some sort of system of historical destiny, and in many ways the Wu-Tang, in defining a historical battle against the "inaugration of Satan" do so. Many times the concept is just sort of a generic "very large important power or idea". Particularly insightful people may realize that the only concept that can unify everything is the concept of emptiness, but whatever the concept is, it serves a role as the real world unifier of people, and the deliverer of them from the illusions thrust upon them by a fractured world system.

Why exactly, the RZA should choose to bring up this issue is something that could be explained by a number of factors: his ego, his desire to enlighten his brethern, and of course, just sheer starry eyed wonder that he has seen the Grand Ultimate.


printable version
chaos

Heart Sutra as narrative and anti-narrative All paths are intersections Everything will be required of us, and everything will be given The Legend Lives Forever in Latin
RZA Pro forma passive voice Cosmicomics
The revolution will not be televised Deltron 3030 Kether U Street/African-American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo
Men in Black Waiting for Satan, Marion? space opera she's dreaming. a perfect life is right there on the pillow
God-Ween-Satan (The Oneness) I've been duped by Satan! intestine conspiracies Cosmology
Diaspora Relative Pronoun Weights and Measures Economics and the American criminal justice system
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