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.
The dislike of being lorded over is very understandable!!
I think that what's happening right now is an opportunity to get our shit together and to heal. It is about the only option that provides any sanity. But time will tell what happens...
It's certainly an opportunity. And NOW is a culmination of different forces including: a quantum understanding of the physical world, a disillusionment with capitalist economic systems, the imminent collapse of ecosystems, climate change, species extinction, the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation, the overpopulated Earth, the folly of empire, the pharmakon of the internet etc ... there's a lot on our collective plate! How will we negotiate all of this? Tyranny feels like an ominous cloud at this perilous altitude. I do believe that our saviour exists in some form of meta-conscious movement. The trouble with awakening is that it is different for each individual. The blessing is that each path has similarities and so we do have a language around it. The 60s showed us that we know what we need. Now we have other very pressing galvanising causes to bring about such a movement again. We have lived differently in the past. Big Ag and cities and TV are not the only way to this thing called life. We just got to be brave.
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?
I hear you, Dirck!! I have been thinking about it a lot, and I think that because we innately feel the connection to everything, and the fact that we are just living one version of life while invisibly, a lot more is going on, we are sometimes tempted to get carried away and "play" to be someone else. Like a real life Halloween. And then the dysfunction of society kicks in, incentives, scolding, temptations to self-betray that come without a warning of the pricetag, etc. etc. It takes a lot of work to find who you are, and stay balanced and grounded. It's the plight that lasts as long as we are alive!
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.
I think a good start would be to introduce yourself. :-) I keep asking you, you don't say, just keep the preachy mystery (like it's a power that is enjoyable) and keep modulating between exaggerated praise and extremely erratic sarcasm or even more erratic sermons, in which you ascribe emotions or thoughts to me that I don't have, as if I am sitting here waiting for you to explain my thoughts to me. It is too time-consuming and not sufficiently enjoyable. I am perfectly fine with you disagreeing, a fiction piece is not in principle intended for universal agreement. It'll have to do.
And seriously. Just introduce yourself as this behavior reeks of a personal beef of which I am not aware, so I am going to wait for you to introduce yourself before continuing the exchange. Will make conversation easier.
Do what? Serve as an opiate against emotions which you claim not to have despite their obvious existence behind your motivation to create such a piece?
Just trying to keep your feet on the ground, Tessa. Call me foolhardy, but I gotta try. You are certainly worth grabbing the ankles of when I see you floating off into the clouds of religion/mysticism/story-telling fantasies that serve nobody except those prone to give in to such nonsense for whatever reason.
You are brave to continue to allow my comments (that is, if this site provides comment moderation). You could easily shift your writings to a moderated platform and convert to a "vanity blog" site where only approved followers who do not challenge certain things you say would be permitted to post. Maybe some asphyxiated part of you needs to hear the things I say to catch some oxygen.
You keep asking me to introduce myself, accusing me of "hiding behind anonymity", and harboring a "personal beef".
As if anyone presenting themselves on the internet is verifiably who they claim to be. What is true and valuable about me can be discerned by the substance of what I say. What does it matter, my name? If I give you one, how can you be sure I am not making it up?
And of a "personal beef", I am as baffled by that accusation as you are. I can only assure you that I am nobody you know personally, somebody stewing at home feeling jilted in some way by you. Not at all.
Again, you are dragging out the classic, tried-and-true tactic used by deceivers whenever they find themselves at a loss to defend their point:
"Whenever you find yourself unable to fault the reasoning of your "attacker", avoid doing that and instead attack the attacker".
"See everyone? Edgar Allen Poe is a cowardly anonymous poster who harbors some unknown personal issue with me! This means whatever is posted under that name is motivated by a vindictive desire to strike me down! Nothing to see here! Move along!"
Not that I regard you as a deceiver, just that you say things sometimes that contradict and weaken the strength of your vision. It's like you got a sneaky little gremlin somewhere close by whispering b.s. into your ear.
If you find conversation with me is difficult, check inside yourself for whatever allows you to float off and tell yourself (and your readers) silly stories.
My words stand. If you feel they do not, then kick out their foundation-- gather up all your intellectual, "heartfelt" might and point out the flaws you see. Let the folks here benefit from any resulting elucidations. Kicking me personally, over and over the same way, demanding my name, painting "vindictive loser" on my face-- this only underscores your inability to do this.
(And now folks, like a clever PR professional, Tessa will have no choice but to say "It is not worth my time to debate the point of my Little Boy story with a vindictive, cowardly loser who hides behind anonymity")
This is verbal macaroni!! You can put together clever sentences but your intention isn't good. I already told you my opinion, it remains the same. I'll respond when and if you talk with a good intention, and if you haven't noticed, I stopped responding to your flattery, either. I am not interested in psychological games, it's not why I write and it's the opposite of why I am so grateful to this community. No verbal macaroni, please, and especially, no anonymous verbal macaroni.
Yes, Wanderer from Afar, nice! I have been circling that but couldn't quite get there. I am given to presume, however, that this story springs from more immediate painful personal experience, and I have to admit that, as a former engineer with a predilection to specify and pigeon hole everything, and with a proclivity for disconnected run-on sentences and digressions, I do too often miss the flow and carry of the abstract. Which is one of the reasons I love this site and so many of the intriguing and thought provoking comments.
Allow me to approach this just a bit differently. The construct for reincarnation that I believe is common and that I have generally adopted is that we live again and somehow may carry past lives a!omg with us. Some have been around longer than others - old souls, in the lexicon of my demographic. But. What if this world is simply Try #1, for everyone. If Try #2 is to be any different, there has to be memory. What if there is memory? Perfect memory, for that matter. Then what happens? Assuming the same human animal, same needs, same instincts, then where does this go?
I highly recommend the work of the Dagara elder Malidoma Some. If you google him, there are videos of him. I included his video in one of my earlier articles, and going to do it again because he does such a beautiful way of talking about metaphysics and our relationship with the ancestors. I am very grateful to him for his wisdom.
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.
The dislike of being lorded over is very understandable!!
I think that what's happening right now is an opportunity to get our shit together and to heal. It is about the only option that provides any sanity. But time will tell what happens...
It's certainly an opportunity. And NOW is a culmination of different forces including: a quantum understanding of the physical world, a disillusionment with capitalist economic systems, the imminent collapse of ecosystems, climate change, species extinction, the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation, the overpopulated Earth, the folly of empire, the pharmakon of the internet etc ... there's a lot on our collective plate! How will we negotiate all of this? Tyranny feels like an ominous cloud at this perilous altitude. I do believe that our saviour exists in some form of meta-conscious movement. The trouble with awakening is that it is different for each individual. The blessing is that each path has similarities and so we do have a language around it. The 60s showed us that we know what we need. Now we have other very pressing galvanising causes to bring about such a movement again. We have lived differently in the past. Big Ag and cities and TV are not the only way to this thing called life. We just got to be brave.
We just got to be brave. Indeed, and the meaning of it may be different for each of us but courage is necessary, I believe.
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?
I hear you, Dirck!! I have been thinking about it a lot, and I think that because we innately feel the connection to everything, and the fact that we are just living one version of life while invisibly, a lot more is going on, we are sometimes tempted to get carried away and "play" to be someone else. Like a real life Halloween. And then the dysfunction of society kicks in, incentives, scolding, temptations to self-betray that come without a warning of the pricetag, etc. etc. It takes a lot of work to find who you are, and stay balanced and grounded. It's the plight that lasts as long as we are alive!
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.
I think a good start would be to introduce yourself. :-) I keep asking you, you don't say, just keep the preachy mystery (like it's a power that is enjoyable) and keep modulating between exaggerated praise and extremely erratic sarcasm or even more erratic sermons, in which you ascribe emotions or thoughts to me that I don't have, as if I am sitting here waiting for you to explain my thoughts to me. It is too time-consuming and not sufficiently enjoyable. I am perfectly fine with you disagreeing, a fiction piece is not in principle intended for universal agreement. It'll have to do.
And seriously. Just introduce yourself as this behavior reeks of a personal beef of which I am not aware, so I am going to wait for you to introduce yourself before continuing the exchange. Will make conversation easier.
"It'll have to do."
Do what? Serve as an opiate against emotions which you claim not to have despite their obvious existence behind your motivation to create such a piece?
Just trying to keep your feet on the ground, Tessa. Call me foolhardy, but I gotta try. You are certainly worth grabbing the ankles of when I see you floating off into the clouds of religion/mysticism/story-telling fantasies that serve nobody except those prone to give in to such nonsense for whatever reason.
You are brave to continue to allow my comments (that is, if this site provides comment moderation). You could easily shift your writings to a moderated platform and convert to a "vanity blog" site where only approved followers who do not challenge certain things you say would be permitted to post. Maybe some asphyxiated part of you needs to hear the things I say to catch some oxygen.
You keep asking me to introduce myself, accusing me of "hiding behind anonymity", and harboring a "personal beef".
As if anyone presenting themselves on the internet is verifiably who they claim to be. What is true and valuable about me can be discerned by the substance of what I say. What does it matter, my name? If I give you one, how can you be sure I am not making it up?
And of a "personal beef", I am as baffled by that accusation as you are. I can only assure you that I am nobody you know personally, somebody stewing at home feeling jilted in some way by you. Not at all.
Again, you are dragging out the classic, tried-and-true tactic used by deceivers whenever they find themselves at a loss to defend their point:
"Whenever you find yourself unable to fault the reasoning of your "attacker", avoid doing that and instead attack the attacker".
"See everyone? Edgar Allen Poe is a cowardly anonymous poster who harbors some unknown personal issue with me! This means whatever is posted under that name is motivated by a vindictive desire to strike me down! Nothing to see here! Move along!"
Not that I regard you as a deceiver, just that you say things sometimes that contradict and weaken the strength of your vision. It's like you got a sneaky little gremlin somewhere close by whispering b.s. into your ear.
If you find conversation with me is difficult, check inside yourself for whatever allows you to float off and tell yourself (and your readers) silly stories.
My words stand. If you feel they do not, then kick out their foundation-- gather up all your intellectual, "heartfelt" might and point out the flaws you see. Let the folks here benefit from any resulting elucidations. Kicking me personally, over and over the same way, demanding my name, painting "vindictive loser" on my face-- this only underscores your inability to do this.
(And now folks, like a clever PR professional, Tessa will have no choice but to say "It is not worth my time to debate the point of my Little Boy story with a vindictive, cowardly loser who hides behind anonymity")
This is verbal macaroni!! You can put together clever sentences but your intention isn't good. I already told you my opinion, it remains the same. I'll respond when and if you talk with a good intention, and if you haven't noticed, I stopped responding to your flattery, either. I am not interested in psychological games, it's not why I write and it's the opposite of why I am so grateful to this community. No verbal macaroni, please, and especially, no anonymous verbal macaroni.
This little boy is me, multiple times over across different lifetimes. How many more tries until my soul will get it right?
Yes, Wanderer from Afar, nice! I have been circling that but couldn't quite get there. I am given to presume, however, that this story springs from more immediate painful personal experience, and I have to admit that, as a former engineer with a predilection to specify and pigeon hole everything, and with a proclivity for disconnected run-on sentences and digressions, I do too often miss the flow and carry of the abstract. Which is one of the reasons I love this site and so many of the intriguing and thought provoking comments.
Allow me to approach this just a bit differently. The construct for reincarnation that I believe is common and that I have generally adopted is that we live again and somehow may carry past lives a!omg with us. Some have been around longer than others - old souls, in the lexicon of my demographic. But. What if this world is simply Try #1, for everyone. If Try #2 is to be any different, there has to be memory. What if there is memory? Perfect memory, for that matter. Then what happens? Assuming the same human animal, same needs, same instincts, then where does this go?
I highly recommend the work of the Dagara elder Malidoma Some. If you google him, there are videos of him. I included his video in one of my earlier articles, and going to do it again because he does such a beautiful way of talking about metaphysics and our relationship with the ancestors. I am very grateful to him for his wisdom.
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.