Stills from The Collapse of the New World Order Seen Through Franz Kafka's Eyes

President Xi Jinping of China welcomed President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for a brief state visit in Beijing on Saturday: photo by Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press, 25 June 2016

The Dissolution of The New World Order

The new world order and the old refusal of the stubborn human to submit to order
Violently collide, and out of this impact comes a new new

World order, and then a new complication of the human

Occurs, and there is another violent collision, and these complications

And collisions multiply expo -- what was that word again, exponentially?

Irresolute. Inconclusive. Ongoing. Objectionable. Insane

New world orders keep popping up, impossibly unfurling, proliferating in explosive

Nodes of new disorder spreading across the world display screen and out

Come the armor, the weaponry, the festival, the holiday declared

In honor of the latest new world order even before it has emerged, revealing

The difficult truth, that all new world orders were always temporary, provisional

Acts of wishful thinking on the part of the stubborn human, so that
The stubborn human no longer seeks resolution in a new world order, until it does
And no longer collides violently with its own broken new world orders, until it does.

Britain’s decision to leave the bloc dominated newspaper front pages in Athens on Saturday.: photo by Simela Pantzartzi/European Pressphoto Agency, 25 June 2016

LEBANON - A cardboard crucifix sits on a hill at the Monastery of the Cross in Jal el-Dib. By @Patrick_Baz#AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

Here's why, in the age of video, still images will always have their place. Pic by Ben Cawthra: image via Gordon Rayner @gordonrayner, 24 June 2016

Withdrawing from the European Union is a lengthy process that Mr. Cameron will largely leave to his successor. It will mean pulling out from the world’s largest trading zone, with 508 million residents, including the 65 million people of Britain, and a commitment to the free movement of labor, capital, goods and services.: photo by Andrew Testa for The New York Times, 24 June 2016

Demonstrators are sprayed with a police water cannon during clashes that erupted at the end of a education reform march in Santiago, Chile. Students are demonstrating to demand free access to school for all ages, including university level.: photo by Esteban Felix / AP, 23 June 2016

A horse rears in the crowd during the traditional San Juan, or Saint John, festival in the town of Ciutadella, on the Balearic Island of Menorca, on the eve of Saint John's day on June 23, 2016. During the festival, Minorcan race horses gallop and prance on their hind legs through the streets of Ciutadella to honor of the town's patron saint. As the caixers, or horse riders, ride together in a parade, spectators attempt to pat the horses' chests to get good luck.: photo by Jaime Reina / AFP, 23 June 2016

A Syrian refugee from Aleppo holding her son's hand walks past an advertising banner used as a makeshift tent in a Syrian refugee camp in Kab Elias, in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley: photo by Patrick Baz / AFP, 20 June 2016

Steam rises from a scrum during the Super Rugby Exhibition match between the Rebels and the Hurricanes at Harlequins Rugby Club in Melbourne, Australia.: photo by Scott Barbour, 23 June 2016

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer Constantino Zarate tries to herd an emu off the highway as a wildfire continues to burn north of the U.S. Mexico border near Potrero, California: photo by Mike Blake / Reuters, 21 June 2016

A woman sits with her belongings in front of the rubble of her destroyed houses after a tornado in Funing, in Yancheng, in China's Jiangsu province on June 24, 2016. Extreme weather, including hailstorms, heavy rain and a tornado, killed 78 and injured dozens in China's eastern Jiangsu province, the official Xinhua news agency reported on June 23.

A woman sits with her belongings in front of the rubble of her destroyed houses after a tornado in Funing, in Yancheng, in China’s Jiangsu province today: photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP, 24 June 2016

CHINA - A woman sits with her belongings in front of the rubble of her houses after a tornado in Funing. By @johaynz: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

COLOMBIA - Colombians celebrate in Medellin after the ceasefire between the Gov. and FARC guerrillas. By @RAULARBOLEDA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

PHILIPPINES - The religious festival in honor of St. John the Baptist (mud people festival) in Aliaga. By Ted Aljibe: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

SYRIA - Syrian girls ride a horse and carriage carrying a water tank near Manbij. By @Delilsouleman #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

WEST BANK - Palestinians walk through an Israeli checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. By Musa Al-Shaer #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

MYANMAR - Myanmar Buddhists ransack mosque as religious violence flares in Thuye Tha Mein. By @ye_aung_thu #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

SYRIA - US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters sit in vehicle as they advance into IS bastion of Manbij. By @DelilSouleiman: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

UKRAINE- A resident of Donetsk looks through a hole into a building after a night shelling. By Aleksey Filippov #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

WEST BANK - Clashes against expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in Kfar Qaddum. By Jaafar Ashtiyeh #AFP: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

FRANCE - Migrants walk past a graffiti reading "London my dream" at the "Jungle" camp in Calais. By Philippe Huguen: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 24 June 2016

El Brexit reaviva el debate sobre los campamentos de migrantes de Calais #AFP: image via Agence France-Presse @AFPespanol, 25 June 2016

INDIA - A kashmiri protestor holds stones in his hand during clashes in downtown Srinagar. By @TauseefMUSTAFA: image via Frédérique Geffard @fgeffardAFP, 23 June 2016

A panoramic view of the city of La Paz pictured from El Alto, Bolivia: photo by David Mercado / Reuters, 21 June 2016

A King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) chick, born after its egg was artificially incubated for 58 days, is fed by a volunteer at Santa Fe Zoo in Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia: photo by Raul Arboleda / AFP, 17 June 2016

Members of Mexican Federal Police clash with teachers holding a protest against an education reform and the arrest of two of their leaders, in Oaxaca State. At least three people were killed and dozens injured when police clashed with thousands of teachers blocking roads in a protest in southern Mexico on Sunday, leaving some officers with bullet wounds.: photo by AFP, 19 June 2016

Seven-year-old female panda Huan-Huan, before undergoing an ultrasound test on June 23, 2016, at the zoological park of Beauval in Saint-Aignan, France, after showing signs of pregnancy over the past few weeks.: photo by Guillaume Souvant / AFP, 23 June 2016

A municipal worker covers graffiti with gray paint before a demonstration near the headquarters of the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gundem newspaper in Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey stepped up its crackdown on the media Monday, detaining and charging the local representative of international rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and two intellectuals for “terrorist propaganda.” The RSF representative Erol Onderoglu, the journalist Ahmet Nesin, and the rights activist and academic Sebnem Korur Fincanci were charged for taking part in a campaign of solidarity with the newspaper in May.: photo by Ozan Kose / AFP, 21 June 2016

Untitled: photo by elinorfo, 7 June 2016

Franz Kafka:Resolutions

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Eyes.jpg

Eyes (Jewgienij Bal): photo by Anna Bal, 2005

To lift yourself out of a miserable mood, even if you have to do it by strength of will, should be easy. I force myself out of my chair, stride around the table, exercise my head and neck, make my eyes sparkle, tighten the muscles around them. Defy my own feelings, welcome A. enthusiastically supposing he comes to see me, amiably tolerate B. in my room, swallow all that is said at C.'s, whatever pain and trouble it may cost me, in long draughts.

Yet even if I manage that, one single slip, and a slip cannot be avoided, will stop the whole process, easy and painful alike, and I will have to shrink back into my own circle again.

So perhaps the best resource is to meet everything passively, to make yourself an inert mass, and, if you feel that you are being carried away, not to let yourself be lured into taking a single unnecessary step, to stare at others with the eyes of an animal, to feel no compunction, in short, with your own hand to throttle down whatever ghostly life remains in you, that is, to enlarge the final peace of the graveyard and let nothing survive save that.

A characteristic movement in such a condition is to run your little finger along your eyebrows.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924): Resolutions(Entschlüsse), written between 1904 and 1912, from Betrachtung (Meditation), 1913, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir in The Penal Colony: Stories and Short Pieces, 1948