Artist Statement and Bio:
Vivian Romero was raised in Venice, California and moved to Oakland in 1990. After completing her Master of Arts in School Counseling, she worked for Oakland Public School’s as a Counselor and Special Educator for 17 years.Currently, Vivian is studying Fine Art at Peralta Colleges and is working as a tutor for adult students. She also has an active spiritual practice based on progressive Christian teachings. Vivian expresses her creativity and spirituality through the visual and written arts, working in mixed media and short story. She likes walking, reading, listening to music and news podcasts, and watching TV with her cat, Happy.
The Bliss
I have read that the period of peace that The Followers begun to refer to as “The Blessing” or more commonly, more gently, “The Bliss” lasted from 3015 through 3030 - 15 years of order. This is true. The Bliss has been steady. It began in 3015 and it ended in 3030.
The Bliss was caused by planned climate, economic, sociological, and technological breakthroughs. Even though I’m a Follower, I know now that it was an exploitation of nanotechnology and software development that led to behavioral changes in large groups of African American boys and young men. Led my Tony/Julian, it would be a lie to say that The Bliss was caused by him. But he had hidden solutions. His Followers, like me, caused the solutions: then we stood and watched as they grew into peace. I have heard people agree with this - the Agreements, that’s what we call them. They were born in 2970. They’ve seen enough to know that it could’ve been a lie. They could’ve stopped it, but they ignored waste. They watched the rich, satiated, and healthy become enviable for less and less people. Ultimately, it didn’t matter to them - they didn’t want to become extinct so they believed Tony/Julian, and they lost their collective will and disappeared into indifference.
There we are-
Apathy,
Opening,
Indifference,
Neglecting life,
Praise,
Neglecting praise,
Nothing,
Neglecting, nothing
Abandon-
We die
With purpose,
But helpless
All that you’ve lost
You agree is lost
All that you lose
Is lost
The ending lie
Is Stagnate.
Nothing
Is Stagnate
Everything is placation
Today is departure day, we’re disorganizing a community called Scorn here outside the vineyards of Humboldt County. We can do this. We engaged in collective sadness by manipulating our group software and took over the community of 60. More for us. We’ll have collective dreams now. It’s a common occurrence in the past few years - new friends with strange commonalities. I know them in their dreams. They have such hard, hard endings. This departure was, at last, a trip away, a chance to be apart from despised angels.
Our new home arose from the earth. We predicted this. I can talk about it today, even though it was meant to be forgettable. A loud day of abandonment. Yet there it is, broken and empty. As its always been.
The past is dust. Meant to be forgettable
Now is now
The future is timeless
Tony in the past
He hated his given name - Anthony - shortened to Tony. He mocked it. But he loved the name Julian- he picked it out, repeated it to me with a glowing depth in his voice, “Julian,” he said.
I first saw him in the building across the street from where I lived. His office was upstairs and in front of his desk was a large window. For months I would look up at the window when I walked or drove by. Before long, he noticed. I waved, he waved back. We did this for a while - waved at each other. Eventually I would see him outside - he’d be getting into his car and I’d walk by and say hi. Eventually we spoke - he had a much more casual and approachable demeanor than I expected. He was nice and funny. He seemed interested in getting to know me. He was 35, I was 25.
When we finally talked, I learned he had a law degree but didn’t work as a lawyer. He worked for a non-profit, mentoring African American boys. He told me stories about all the lives he changed - he called the boys “Oppressed and helpless” and said it was him, and no one else, that changed their lives and got them on the, “Right track.” That’s what he said and I believed him because I wasn’t of his race but wanted to understand. I took his experience as truth. When we dated, he would get calls from his mentee’s. He didn’t want me to overhear, but I heard enough to know they called him for support and he gave it to them. They became his Followers. And when it came time to take the Nothingness software, they did it willingly and completely.
When reality defeats
Chaos is found
When chaos is found
Hate may be remembered.
When hate is remembered
Indifference rules everyone.
When indifference rules everyone,
Creation...creation.
Vivian Romero in the past
Sitting across from him, I looked at his skin, hair, clothes, and facial hair. He was attractive. To say I had a crush on him or that I was infatuated with him, wouldn’t be accurate. It would be superficial and minimizing what I really felt. It was more like a lesser form of awe. I felt compelled to know his inner world, but felt equally compelled that he wouldn’t let me into it. I was distracted by him over and over. I forgot where I was going when I was driving. I agonized over what he sought and didn’t seek. I was without a container.
We take our living
To the dust
And the dust.
We take our living
To dead.
Julian speaks in the future
"Now is the time friends, for indifference. America is nothing. We are nothing. We are
together in nothingness. Who are we? What are we? What ripe, cool, protected, religious groupare we?
Are we religious? Are we? Can we be religious? Is it necessary?
We are nothing or we are something. We are nothing! Or we are God’s people!
Nothingness, we have nurtured thee!
Why have we allowed ourselves to be defended by these Angels of the Light? These
religious thieves of true Christian skepticism? These elitists...these religious people are right.
They’re safe. They’re wholesome. They’re as harmless as good luck, as good as a dolphin.
They help us to live! They give us life! They deaden the corrupt joy of nothingness toward us
for our guided greed to them. They are the artificial creators of our country. They are enemies of
the Angel of Light, repulsed by our adults, allies of our women, neighbors, givers, nurturers!
And in the face of all that, what are we to do with them? Shall we die with them? Shall
we let them end it all and take us to heaven? Doubt! What do we do to disease? What must we
do to open ourselves and our adults? What can we do to lose our guided way?
We must remain true to nothingness, to emptiness, to indifference. Detach yourselves!
Wipe out self destructive thoughts and actions!
Come to me.”
Light
Destroys darkness
As darkness
Destroys light.
Life
Destroys death
As death
Destroys life.
The narrow
And nothing
Separate this incompleteness,
None
Confusing the same.
Nothing
Takes destruction to the narrow
As the narrow
Destroys nothing
Nothingness
Julian created it with his Followers. Nothingness software. It loaded into the nervous system. It wiped out attachment. Attachment to anything. The taker decides what to detach from and monitors and sets the software. Indifference, according to Julian, is the goal. He convinced his Followers to create, develop, market, and take it. Many of the Followers lived at the Nothingness compound, which used to be Humboldt State University. They lived off the harvests of the land. Simply. Nothingness was like a hermitage. Isolated with common beliefs.
Today I was found. I was conscious. I was lucid. I suspected that Julian was wrong. I was a fortunate woman. My son was coherent, but there was nothing between us when we were together. Because he had been taken by the software. He wanted to be called Kurt, but the rest of him was neutral. He wanted me to take Nothingness. Later, when Julian and I reunited, he told me to take the software. I didn’t agree with him.
“We need a range of emotional states to attach to people and express our creativity,” I argued with Julian as we were planning my son and I staying at Nothingness. “We need to know how to overcome adversity.” I knew I was venturing into dangerous territory with Julian because the software was his creation. His Followers were devoted to detachment, but attached to him.
“My Followers aren’t in jail,” he spewed. “They don’t commit crimes. They live in peace amongst each other. They work hard. We live! We live! We have a human experience!”
“Your followers are surviving, not living. Not expressing, not thriving. They follow your every command based on your...your...whimsy,” I stammered. “Julian, I don’t want that software in anymore people or my son! I don’t know him!”
He looked at me for a moment, his eyes hard then soft. “It’s going in. And that’s it.”
“You can’t do this…” I gasped as he turned and walked away to a waiting cadre of Followers.
It didn’t matter. I already managed to convince a group of creatively astute hackers that Nothingness software was dangerous. That it threatened our survival- our ability to express ourselves. We infiltrated the Nothingness software the day before yesterday. It was a beautiful storm - truly beautiful. We were on the brink of reprogramming Tony/Julian and his Follower’s. As we readied ourselves to approach Scorn, the reprogramming took effect. The Followers grew confused as they detached from their indifference. They detached from each other as their common goal eroded.
Calm
Is nothing
Shaped, pleased, starved.
Destroy calm-
Destroy nothing.
Quit.
Ruin the delay
Or the misdirection of nothing.
Remain restricted.
Divide the end of Stagnation
Free Stagnation.
Leave it alone.
Neglect and stunt.
Nothing is Stagnate,
And in the beginning,
Nothing fails.
But meanwhile…
Hostility upsets Stagnation.
Hate rouses fearlessness.
And a bitter and weak
Negative indifference
Sharpens ease,
Maintains calm,
And disconnects each of us
In the menial,
The most dull
Of our inferior successes
To shape nothing
With thoughtlessness and indiscretion,
To harm your world,
Your people,
Your death,
Abandon causes,
Maximize benefit
Answer certainty,
Neglect questions,
Lose,
Confuse
Invite:
At peace
Or at war,
More people live
Of enlightened caring
Than of any other advantage.
