Shocking

It's shocking, the extent to which anyone finds any of this interesting. But still, to keep working, to remain still for long enough to follow a few thoughts and then find the words to describe them and maybe the music to make them sing. That could be good enough. Shocking, even, in this day in time. But should that be considered obscene?

In fact, by the most casual definition, mere attention greatly fails to register. We expect it to be paid somehow, as though it was the last and ultimate currency and even though we've no plans to exploit it for anything other than itself - not exactly much of a trade. What we could 'get' in exchange for a real shock - discomfort, momentary awkwardness, shaking ground - the things that move needles, we relegate to levels of unimportance and lack of impress in order not concern ourselves with problematic thoughts and actions. If the implications of a thing are no great matter, the thing itself is less of a bother - and we move on to identify other more consensus-oriented offenses everyone can agree on. That, for lack of a better word, unite us. So instead of being divided over matters of conscience, we unite for the sake comity. What's obscene, again?

The sensibility to be crossed is the prejudice to be excavated, lifted out the ground and set right, if not upright, in standing and safe for mixed company. We mire in the dirt and soil with soul in peril - would that it be saved or at least spared the indignity of its own depraved nature. Would that the useless Gommorahs find purpose in staining the very ground on which they are situated, harken back to a time when reproach was in supply and offense, a tactical ground to be sieged and thoroughly pilfered in good time. Was there more or less shock in supply? Is it a quantity that ebbs and flows? How do we recognize gross offenses in a randomized outcome culture based on 1s and 0s?

But the pilfered imagination grows defenseless in all this scrawl - and seeks for old ground to claim as new: bad words, uncovered genetalia, blasphemia - benign outlets for canned offense are at the ready, as is the missionary to zeal to prosecute and subdue it.

All the while, rage evolves, too.

So which of these is obscene?