If we could find a place from which we would have a good view on our everyday culture we would see society with a general population who reside in the gigantic margins of contemporary culture. Addicted people, who travel between worlds, in which the function of licensed travel agencies is played by all kinds of psychoactive substances and the return from this forced emigration is handled by specialist detox agencies which perform the function of SPAs for the poorer social masses. This is the perspective from which we can look at addicts. Those addicted to another, deeper form of Being in this our overwhelmingly grey-coloured everyday life. People diving into the underwater depths of their own imaginations and fantasies, where the motivation for travel is the desire to realize their subliminal needs pushed out into atomised families.
This growing suppression causes frustration and the need to reanimate one`s individual cultural life leads future cultural tourists to undertake journeys whose destinations are the live-giving zones of Big Blue or Paradise Garden.
The term „Narconauts” was introduced to Polish psychology by Jerzy Siczek when he published, in the Santorski&Co a editorial house for extreme psychology, his book „Narconauts – from addiction to the good life” [„Narkonauci – od uzależnienia do dobrego życia”]. The book is about the initiation of people who have been in Monar for a year or two. Unfortunately, after their birth they were deprived of the comfort of motherly arms and were thrown out into the cold, rocky shores of our reality. And what a shoreline awaits these newly arrived Argonauts stepping out into the island. We all know, because we walk it every day. Statistic show quite clearly that mortality among newly born neophytes is higher than among children in the countries of the third and fourth world. The newly arrived Monar-people are threatened every step by mythical monsters asking questions and trials worthy of our ancient mythological heroes. In our opinion the term „Narconauts” itself has become a neologism with its source in two historical events. The first of them is Greek mythology and the story of the journey of Jason and his fifty companions, these mythical figures, Heracles, Orpheus, Castor and Thesus and others. The goal and destination of the ship Argo was to find the land of the „Golden Fleece” [from the beginning of time, gold and notoriety have motivated „boys” to take risk which means – as is widely known – that there are more females around]. The voyage of the Argonauts was long and troublesome and our protagonists encountered numerous obstacles on their way and they really had to make great efforts to overcome them. They showed true heroism when fleeing Lemnos Island where the beautiful women of the island to dissuade them from travelling further held them in their beautiful arms.
The second proposition which leads us to the term „Argonaut” is a book which has to be read by every researcher in the domain of culture [we can count psychologists among them]. This term was introduced to cultural anthropology with something like the power of a waterfall by no less a Pole, the precursor of the intense in-field research method: Bronisław Malinowski. One of the first researchers in that nascent queen of all sciences, that is anthropology ;), who, following the steps of Herodotus left his office to carry out research in the field among the native peoples of the Pacific islands. Bronisław stayed with the Triobrand natives for several years writing volumes of descriptions about the islanders`lives. „Argonauts of the Western Pacific” and „The sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia”, are the anthropology tenets of the reading list, the cherry on the top of the cake, you might say. Without it anthropology and sociology would be in nappies today and we would be trapped behind the tightly closed borders of our „mono-centrism”, without the possibility of savouring the wealth of cultures from the four corners of the globe.
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| Argonauts |
The second proposition which leads us to the term „Argonaut” is a book which has to be read by every researcher in the domain of culture [we can count psychologists among them]. This term was introduced to cultural anthropology with something like the power of a waterfall by no less a Pole, the precursor of the intense in-field research method: Bronisław Malinowski. One of the first researchers in that nascent queen of all sciences, that is anthropology ;), who, following the steps of Herodotus left his office to carry out research in the field among the native peoples of the Pacific islands. Bronisław stayed with the Triobrand natives for several years writing volumes of descriptions about the islanders`lives. „Argonauts of the Western Pacific” and „The sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia”, are the anthropology tenets of the reading list, the cherry on the top of the cake, you might say. Without it anthropology and sociology would be in nappies today and we would be trapped behind the tightly closed borders of our „mono-centrism”, without the possibility of savouring the wealth of cultures from the four corners of the globe.
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| Malinowski and Triobrands in 1918 |
No one describes culture as well as a sensitive field researcher and his description is complimented by his friends, and enemies. We know nothing about Bronisław`s enemies but as far as his friend go, we can say clearly: they were in the first league of spiritual desperados of those times. His closest friend was Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz or Witkacy, a personage recently inccreasingly exploited by the pop culture – more or less skilfully.
Stanisław was not only a professional painter but he really painted and when painting he travelled with his whole entourage in the images he painted of his drug-induced visions. As Marco Polo had once done, Witkacy travelling in his ship [of mescaline] discoreved worlds which were to be revealed later by sailors like Morrison and Hendrix.
Times changed and the winding roads of travel were trodden by prominent pop culture ladies from Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse. These women were, are, particularly predisposed to transoceanic trips, clasping the steering wheel of single handed boats, blazing unknown paths for travellers to come so tourists of both genders could find their way using these prepared maps and avoid cultural whirlpools. A detailed map and a good crew is half way to success.
Amateur experiences from the last decades show clearly that if every now and then the chips fall on a rocky reef or get stuck in cultural shoals, this is a clear sign that the way has been lost and you need to look for a new, safer route to India.
The need to escape from the world through a sacred or profane. Fix depending on the developed stage of the user, is often the only way to run from this reality and Be, with a capital creative B [B as in Brahman, B is in Bieluń, B is in Bohater - `Hero` in Polish], on the Bergamut Islands [fictional islands from a Polish kiddie poem]. The intention behind this article is not to prepare the accoutrements and trails necessary for the journey, but to illustrate how many people set out and return [or not] from trips to the other side of the mirror.
Perhaps the time has come to realize how difficult these routes can be and how different addictions are, and it is up to us to choose the best path for ourselves and our loved ones, so these Dorothy`s can return safe and sound from their touristic excursions [in the Land of Oz]. How serious the problem of addiction is in culture can be realized by stepping out of the traditional frame of our childhood mirror. This had reflected our reality and shown us precisely what we wanted to see; because we see only what we are ready to accept.
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| Witkacy "Visit to Rajah" |
Stanisław was not only a professional painter but he really painted and when painting he travelled with his whole entourage in the images he painted of his drug-induced visions. As Marco Polo had once done, Witkacy travelling in his ship [of mescaline] discoreved worlds which were to be revealed later by sailors like Morrison and Hendrix.
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| Jim Morrison |
Amateur experiences from the last decades show clearly that if every now and then the chips fall on a rocky reef or get stuck in cultural shoals, this is a clear sign that the way has been lost and you need to look for a new, safer route to India.
The need to escape from the world through a sacred or profane. Fix depending on the developed stage of the user, is often the only way to run from this reality and Be, with a capital creative B [B as in Brahman, B is in Bieluń, B is in Bohater - `Hero` in Polish], on the Bergamut Islands [fictional islands from a Polish kiddie poem]. The intention behind this article is not to prepare the accoutrements and trails necessary for the journey, but to illustrate how many people set out and return [or not] from trips to the other side of the mirror.
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| Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters |
We think that after this short introduction we will be ready to step out of the frame and look at reality from another perspective. So let us look at the Polish Flower Power movement, a movement for which life on the Fix is almost an everyday issue. In Poland taking a Fix or escaping that overwhelming reality of life has a long and rich tradition. How long? Long! Longer than Jarocin [Polish punkrock festival], „Dżem” dope for Rysiek Riedel, longer than the amphetamine marathoners of Kora and the bohemia of Kraków. [`Dżem` a Polish blues group, means `Jam`].
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| Maki |
The first Fix Share community was established in 1897 in Grudziądz under the name worthy of the Kesey commune - „Sun Baths”. The movement, because this is how people associated it in the Polish Share Association [Polski Związek Działkowców] describes itself as over 110 years old. So how can hippies or the hardcore element of society even compare themselves with the old school fix scene? What is the force behind the boys and girls of the Polski Związek Działkowców? Here let us give you two significant statistics:
5200 Polish share gardens exist in Poland now
44000 hectares on land is shared [a nation within a nation]
How many people set out from blocks of flats to Live, to Be, how many take a fix every day together with their partner[s], how many of them Fix with their children, how many invited yet unaware friends enter into that persistent hunger for an experience of this type?
Many, a lot...
In a not very distant time, when the eye of Sauron looked at the Polish Hobbiton and the Solidarity team of the Ring was dispersed, that is in gloomy 1981, the number of those applying for the right to a legal Fix reached 700.000! Danish Christiania and the power of its social influence is cultural minimalism compared to the Polish Fix / Share movement and is considered with quiet derision here.
Who are these Polish Narconauts or maybe Fix Shareonauts? Because they – contrary to those reborn Monar-people – do not want to return to reality, quite the contrary: they want to flee from it to the green autonomus enclaves of their brand new, better life.
Who runs? Everyone who can!
Plots in Polish shared gardens are used by all social and professional groups. Workers and clerks, retired people and disabled, as well as the recently unemployed, share. In terms of professions sharing is popular among those employed in heavy industry but those is light industry i.e. Textile in Łódź also value it. Teachers, military, health workers, clerks, employees of small institutions and factories scattered around Poland share.
Students and high school pupils join this sharing sometimes not quite legally, with the agreement of their parents and other caretakers of these gardens to discover, in silence, new worlds accessible usually only to the better-off adult members of society. Ouite soon all social and cultural groups will want the right to Share. Theoretically everyone has the right to Share but the problem lies in the fact that we have different financial and cultural conditions and these limit us in the choice of the Share most sitable for us.
As statistics show: there are 4 milion declared Share-takers – this is how many people have moved to an alternative reality in the last few years. And how many people have not been diagnosed? How many are thinking to start and how and with whom to Share? Where to buy, where to get a loan, where to mortgage the mortgage on their house, car, apartment, to have something to Share.
Not to be stuck in their everyday lives, to escape to live according to their biological rhythm just for a while. To see the sky, moon, feel the ground beneath their feet. To be in touch with plants, watch how a baby crawls across the grass, to have space for themselves, to have a hammock and put up a wigwam... What is happening in the peripheries of our culture, how does life go on Sharing? It`s enough to leave your house and travel a few kilometres in any of the four directions of the compass to come across a hidden safe haven behind a fence full of people who have chosen another form of life for a short weekend. The images we see are not of interrelated architecture. No designer junk as proposed in magazines such as `Cztery Kąty` or `Murator`. Here there are forms looking as if they have come from Salvador Dali`s paintings, accidental items joined together to form a nice entirety, steel, inanimate earlier, bowls turned into toadstools, mini gates adjusted for dwarfs through which grown-ups enter, houses and buildings in the shape of palaces and castles worthy of our contemporary Radziwiłł family, drawbridges and rock gardens. Adults move about within this surrealistic frame. Living without uniforms and corporate distinctions, in shorts nad white bras as if from the times of our Peoples Republic of Poland, basically People of the Fairytale. People discovering who they really are, able to actually create their own microcosm, from scratch, in harmony with nature and the inner culture. This beautiful view brings to mind the following programme necessary to re:animate Polish and European culture: why not have cheap legal lots available for all people so they can live, create and travel on routes as yet unknown to us, in an accessible and secure way. Green tourism without the necessity of hospitalizing urban tourists.
As statistics show: there are 4 milion declared Share-takers – this is how many people have moved to an alternative reality in the last few years. And how many people have not been diagnosed? How many are thinking to start and how and with whom to Share? Where to buy, where to get a loan, where to mortgage the mortgage on their house, car, apartment, to have something to Share.
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| Natural Mystic |
Not to be stuck in their everyday lives, to escape to live according to their biological rhythm just for a while. To see the sky, moon, feel the ground beneath their feet. To be in touch with plants, watch how a baby crawls across the grass, to have space for themselves, to have a hammock and put up a wigwam... What is happening in the peripheries of our culture, how does life go on Sharing? It`s enough to leave your house and travel a few kilometres in any of the four directions of the compass to come across a hidden safe haven behind a fence full of people who have chosen another form of life for a short weekend. The images we see are not of interrelated architecture. No designer junk as proposed in magazines such as `Cztery Kąty` or `Murator`. Here there are forms looking as if they have come from Salvador Dali`s paintings, accidental items joined together to form a nice entirety, steel, inanimate earlier, bowls turned into toadstools, mini gates adjusted for dwarfs through which grown-ups enter, houses and buildings in the shape of palaces and castles worthy of our contemporary Radziwiłł family, drawbridges and rock gardens. Adults move about within this surrealistic frame. Living without uniforms and corporate distinctions, in shorts nad white bras as if from the times of our Peoples Republic of Poland, basically People of the Fairytale. People discovering who they really are, able to actually create their own microcosm, from scratch, in harmony with nature and the inner culture. This beautiful view brings to mind the following programme necessary to re:animate Polish and European culture: why not have cheap legal lots available for all people so they can live, create and travel on routes as yet unknown to us, in an accessible and secure way. Green tourism without the necessity of hospitalizing urban tourists.
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| Home, sweet home |
Translator: Zygmunt Nowak - Soliński
Take Me nr 6 august/october 2010
Take Me nr 6 august/october 2010
original version: here
Bibliography:
R. Sulima, Antropologia codzienności, Wyd.UJ, Kraków 2000
R. Sulima, Antropologia codzienności, Wyd.UJ, Kraków 2000
J. Hopkins, D. Sugerman, Nikt nie wyjdzie stąd żywy, In rock Music Press, Poznań 1997 ["No one comes out alive. The biography of Jim Morrison"]
B. Malinowski, Argonauci Zachodniego Pacyfiku, Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 2005 ["Argonauts of the Western Pacific"]
J. Siczek, Narkonauci - od uzależnienia do dobrego życia, Jacek Santorski & Co, Warszawa 1994
The Jim Henson Company Fraggle Rock odc. 1-12, prod. USA, Anglia, 1983
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