No one knows what’s going on … except maybe Terence McKenna.
That is a fundamental. The Gates and Bezos of the world have no more clue as do you or I but through various coincidence they find themselves in positions of wealth and power. Deluded by their good fortune they think they are somehow special and have a right, no a duty!.. to lead us into the future. But they have no clue. Even a cursory glance at their plans reveals that it is nothing more than a thinly veiled grab for even more wealth and power. The Clock of the Long Now, a project I believe Bezos has poured a few million into, is still not built. We cannot even get a timepiece to last a paltry 10,000 years. Okay, maybe it’s only a thought experiment. Here’s a thought: no one has a clue. Dominating clearly isn’t the way to go and the meek and poor aren’t afforded much of a life either. Is there a middle path or an alternative narrative? I’ve always been struck by the story of Buddha, in one particular incarnation, where he lays down and gives his life to a pack of hungry lions. So confident in his reincarnation that such an act becomes a kindly gesture. Im not a believer in reincarnation but I am a believer in seeing the big picture - the long now. With a sun that has a good 5 billion years of burn time left, we have time to get this right. If we wipe ourselves out this time, perhaps in another 10, 20, 50, 100 million years we can have another go. I’ve never understood this desire for power (don’t tell me power can corrupt a person, you haven’t had enough to know what its like - NIN). Maybe that’s just it. I’ve never tasted it. I DO have a dislike of being lorded over however. I think we know, have known for a few thousand years now that the answer to our existential problems lies in dissolving the homunculus. That little guy is causing all sorts of bother. It seems however that in getting rid of the self entirely we also destroy the experiencer. Like the enlightened yogis we become pure consciousness and live a life devoid of duality/attachment. But we have this quite amazing reflective consciousness at our disposal. This large prefrontal cortex through which we can engage in Theory of Mind and imagine alternate realities. Is it a mistake? Is there some use for this unique ability of humans other than to make us highly social and builders of nuclear weapons? How can we become our potential of both at once great builders and people of right action? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all just a crazy experiment to work out why 42 is the answer. It certainly seems abundantly clear that our current trajectory requires adjusting back towards beings of brahma. The fire that we wield is impressive but not galaxy crossing impressive. I feel we have a long way to go if we ever want to get off this rock or live peacefully in awe and wonder on it. Both would be nice.
Tessa, your story seems focused on a spiritual quest, but for me brings up a recurrent musing, which is that in any moment in time I am the sum of my past but also unable to claim any right to its accomplishments or failures. This creates an odd spiritual detachment from the current moment and believed past. Further, how do I know from day to day or even from moment to moment that I am me, and not Bob or Francesca or that cute puppy I just saw? This leads me to the philosophical perspective that (at least conceptually) I very well could be anyone at any time. So how do I pass judgement on others when perhaps they could be me? Is my spirit necessarily sovereign; that is, would they really be different if I were them?
So is Tessa saying that rapist tyrants are all just "part of the plan" because they may actually be pure little boys underneath who just want to know what it's like to bully and harm lots of people because they were once bullied and harmed? These kind of people are actually doing us all a favor by making us all aware how horribly painful, nasty behavior hurts everyone?
I get it! Hitler did us all a favor by showing us what racism is capable of! Thanks Adolf! That was one hell of demonstration there! Well done!
And Ted Bundy-- there's another fine teacher! He showed us, women in particular, "Do not get into cars with strange men who charmingly claim to need your help". Yeah, there's a good lesson to learn: "People in need are not to be trusted! They just might murder you!"
Gosh, what would we do without all these clever rascals out there demonstrating for us what is bad, m'kay?
Hey, my kid needs to learn to not touch a hot stove. **Turns on stove, presses kids hand on it**
Okay that oughta do it. Kid won't be doing that in the future!
Come on Tessa, I'll stop being sarcastic now. Please explain what you mean. To me, that story makes no sense at all.
Seems to me like you are so baffled by, so crushed by the overwhelming amount of horrifying human behavior you see in this world that you are drowning in it desperately trying to find some explanation for it and anything will do, "God, are you up there? WTF!! Help me imbue meaningless horrible acts with purpose and meaning that so I can feel better about all this!"
And so we come up with the same old bible/god/devil nonsense-- "God gives the Devil permission blah blah... Humanity needs the Devil to motivate it to move toward God blah blah... The Devils' treachery makes us stronger yada yada..."
By that logic then, shall we go out into our gardens and trample our Spring flowers? Maybe slap a kid or two around while we're at it? Let's see what that does for them.
Life doesn't need humans to terrorize each other. Mother Nature provides us with plenty of challenges with her diseases and assorted natural disasters. We are just here, us humans, like any other living creature. There is nothing for us to learn, nothing to evolve toward, there is no god to find.
We are born knowing everything we need to know. Children are naturally compassionate and interested in each other. We adults traumatize them away from themselves. Evolution, if this is even actually happening, will just have to take care of itself won't it? We don't even know what we really are yet and we think we know where to steer ourselves? Ludicrous. And "god", if there is a god, will no doubt continue to remain silent and leave us to it.
Stories may help us look at things another way and make us feel better momentarily, but is that really what we want? To b.s. ourselves into feeling better rather than face a painful truth? Namely, that human nastiness has no point, no meaning and no purpose. If any given person does find a way to turn around or overcome the nasty effects of being traumatized then this is indeed privately beautiful and heroic.
But don't try to tell me that such a person was not already beautiful and heroic before they were traumatized.
Tessa, first I want to tell you that I usually appreciate you work, but with this one you seem to lose yourself. Hope I'm not too rude or impolite, but sometimes this is good to face contradictions!
Thinking there is a plan and that we can come back to fix our mistakes, that's convenient when there is no explanation to the absurdity of the world.
The truth is there is no come back. What is done is done, good or evil. There is no creator, or if she exists she is no longer among us.
There are no excuses to be a rapist, predator, a criminal with power. No plan. The wise person stands away from those speculations. What's the problem with nonexistence? Why can't people accept that their death is written since they were born, and they will return to what they used to be: nothing but a few atoms in the universe? When you understand it, then there is no need to be evil, and no need to be good. You are what you are, and everything is fair.
Something or someone can look beautiful because an other one looks ugly. This is a mental construction (prison). The same for good and evil. They don't even exist.
Think of this: Birds will always fly away from the most beautiful woman. Is she so beautiful to them?
What about Love and hate, hum, do we have to love everyone? I know Jesus told us, but who was he? Some zoroastrist who came to teach to the Jews? C'mon, it's time to leave all this, the more you preach love, the more atrocities will be perpetrated. 2 000 years of History should be enough to see this.
No one knows what’s going on … except maybe Terence McKenna.
That is a fundamental. The Gates and Bezos of the world have no more clue as do you or I but through various coincidence they find themselves in positions of wealth and power. Deluded by their good fortune they think they are somehow special and have a right, no a duty!.. to lead us into the future. But they have no clue. Even a cursory glance at their plans reveals that it is nothing more than a thinly veiled grab for even more wealth and power. The Clock of the Long Now, a project I believe Bezos has poured a few million into, is still not built. We cannot even get a timepiece to last a paltry 10,000 years. Okay, maybe it’s only a thought experiment. Here’s a thought: no one has a clue. Dominating clearly isn’t the way to go and the meek and poor aren’t afforded much of a life either. Is there a middle path or an alternative narrative? I’ve always been struck by the story of Buddha, in one particular incarnation, where he lays down and gives his life to a pack of hungry lions. So confident in his reincarnation that such an act becomes a kindly gesture. Im not a believer in reincarnation but I am a believer in seeing the big picture - the long now. With a sun that has a good 5 billion years of burn time left, we have time to get this right. If we wipe ourselves out this time, perhaps in another 10, 20, 50, 100 million years we can have another go. I’ve never understood this desire for power (don’t tell me power can corrupt a person, you haven’t had enough to know what its like - NIN). Maybe that’s just it. I’ve never tasted it. I DO have a dislike of being lorded over however. I think we know, have known for a few thousand years now that the answer to our existential problems lies in dissolving the homunculus. That little guy is causing all sorts of bother. It seems however that in getting rid of the self entirely we also destroy the experiencer. Like the enlightened yogis we become pure consciousness and live a life devoid of duality/attachment. But we have this quite amazing reflective consciousness at our disposal. This large prefrontal cortex through which we can engage in Theory of Mind and imagine alternate realities. Is it a mistake? Is there some use for this unique ability of humans other than to make us highly social and builders of nuclear weapons? How can we become our potential of both at once great builders and people of right action? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s all just a crazy experiment to work out why 42 is the answer. It certainly seems abundantly clear that our current trajectory requires adjusting back towards beings of brahma. The fire that we wield is impressive but not galaxy crossing impressive. I feel we have a long way to go if we ever want to get off this rock or live peacefully in awe and wonder on it. Both would be nice.
Tessa, your story seems focused on a spiritual quest, but for me brings up a recurrent musing, which is that in any moment in time I am the sum of my past but also unable to claim any right to its accomplishments or failures. This creates an odd spiritual detachment from the current moment and believed past. Further, how do I know from day to day or even from moment to moment that I am me, and not Bob or Francesca or that cute puppy I just saw? This leads me to the philosophical perspective that (at least conceptually) I very well could be anyone at any time. So how do I pass judgement on others when perhaps they could be me? Is my spirit necessarily sovereign; that is, would they really be different if I were them?
Okay there's a "head scratcher".
So is Tessa saying that rapist tyrants are all just "part of the plan" because they may actually be pure little boys underneath who just want to know what it's like to bully and harm lots of people because they were once bullied and harmed? These kind of people are actually doing us all a favor by making us all aware how horribly painful, nasty behavior hurts everyone?
I get it! Hitler did us all a favor by showing us what racism is capable of! Thanks Adolf! That was one hell of demonstration there! Well done!
And Ted Bundy-- there's another fine teacher! He showed us, women in particular, "Do not get into cars with strange men who charmingly claim to need your help". Yeah, there's a good lesson to learn: "People in need are not to be trusted! They just might murder you!"
Gosh, what would we do without all these clever rascals out there demonstrating for us what is bad, m'kay?
Hey, my kid needs to learn to not touch a hot stove. **Turns on stove, presses kids hand on it**
Okay that oughta do it. Kid won't be doing that in the future!
Come on Tessa, I'll stop being sarcastic now. Please explain what you mean. To me, that story makes no sense at all.
Seems to me like you are so baffled by, so crushed by the overwhelming amount of horrifying human behavior you see in this world that you are drowning in it desperately trying to find some explanation for it and anything will do, "God, are you up there? WTF!! Help me imbue meaningless horrible acts with purpose and meaning that so I can feel better about all this!"
And so we come up with the same old bible/god/devil nonsense-- "God gives the Devil permission blah blah... Humanity needs the Devil to motivate it to move toward God blah blah... The Devils' treachery makes us stronger yada yada..."
By that logic then, shall we go out into our gardens and trample our Spring flowers? Maybe slap a kid or two around while we're at it? Let's see what that does for them.
Life doesn't need humans to terrorize each other. Mother Nature provides us with plenty of challenges with her diseases and assorted natural disasters. We are just here, us humans, like any other living creature. There is nothing for us to learn, nothing to evolve toward, there is no god to find.
We are born knowing everything we need to know. Children are naturally compassionate and interested in each other. We adults traumatize them away from themselves. Evolution, if this is even actually happening, will just have to take care of itself won't it? We don't even know what we really are yet and we think we know where to steer ourselves? Ludicrous. And "god", if there is a god, will no doubt continue to remain silent and leave us to it.
Stories may help us look at things another way and make us feel better momentarily, but is that really what we want? To b.s. ourselves into feeling better rather than face a painful truth? Namely, that human nastiness has no point, no meaning and no purpose. If any given person does find a way to turn around or overcome the nasty effects of being traumatized then this is indeed privately beautiful and heroic.
But don't try to tell me that such a person was not already beautiful and heroic before they were traumatized.
This little boy is me, multiple times over across different lifetimes. How many more tries until my soul will get it right?
Tessa, first I want to tell you that I usually appreciate you work, but with this one you seem to lose yourself. Hope I'm not too rude or impolite, but sometimes this is good to face contradictions!
Thinking there is a plan and that we can come back to fix our mistakes, that's convenient when there is no explanation to the absurdity of the world.
The truth is there is no come back. What is done is done, good or evil. There is no creator, or if she exists she is no longer among us.
There are no excuses to be a rapist, predator, a criminal with power. No plan. The wise person stands away from those speculations. What's the problem with nonexistence? Why can't people accept that their death is written since they were born, and they will return to what they used to be: nothing but a few atoms in the universe? When you understand it, then there is no need to be evil, and no need to be good. You are what you are, and everything is fair.
Something or someone can look beautiful because an other one looks ugly. This is a mental construction (prison). The same for good and evil. They don't even exist.
Think of this: Birds will always fly away from the most beautiful woman. Is she so beautiful to them?
What about Love and hate, hum, do we have to love everyone? I know Jesus told us, but who was he? Some zoroastrist who came to teach to the Jews? C'mon, it's time to leave all this, the more you preach love, the more atrocities will be perpetrated. 2 000 years of History should be enough to see this.