here I try to tie up several different points into one
pretty little ball…
I am trying to understand our age in general… an overall
look at who we are and what is happening…
and I am reminded of the old Zen saying…
before Zen, the mountains are level and the sea is calm and
the river flows calmly…
during Zen, the mountains jump and the sea rages and the river
flows over its bank…
after Zen, the mountain is level and the sea is calm and
the river flows calmly…
we are at the point of during Zen… when everything is toss into the air
and everything is muddled and nothing makes sense…
but why? Why should things be so, so up in the air… everything is
so unsettled…so why?
I was watching some show on Scifi called Krypton… about the backstory
of Superman and his ancestors, grandfather and the like and then
the fact that this lead character is Superman’s grandfather…Seg…
and the basic premise about Superman’s home world is twofold,
first, that they believe that they are the only beings in the universe
and that belief is religious based and the second theme is that Krypton
is a class base society…it has caste, a warrior caste for example
and a science caste… by no means is this a new idea, but it did
click some idea’s in that a caste base system is on where you know,
absolutely know your place and role within society…
this is an idea lost in our “modern” society…Europe did have
a caste system in place for a thousand years… you knew your role…
the caste system could be thought of as a hierarchy based society…
defined roles played by every caste and person within that caste…
even today, England still has that with the Hierarchy top being
the Queen of England and every step below being rigidly decided…
Prince Charles and William and Kate and Harry all having their fixed
roles within that Hierarchy and English society flows down from that
fixed hierarchy…heaven help the person who tries to deviate from their
roles…
we too a lessor degree have a hierarchy… money and fame
and some official position like being the President gives America
a semblance of a hierarchy…but what of us? what of the over 320 million
of us who don’t have money or fame or an official position… what is to be our role
in the society… and thus we have “during Zen” because we are not sure anymore
of who we are and what is our role… and everything points to this…
for example, as discussed above, dress… the way we dress tells everyone
our role and what we think our role is…dress is one means to create
an hierarchy within society…status as in wealth is another means to
create an hierarchy within society…Keeping up with the Jones in not just
about material consumption but about our roles and our place within the
hierarchy…
the rise of megachurches is just another step in our confusion
about our role within society…the rise of megachurches is another
attempt to create an hierarchy within society… the medieval
attempt, of the closer to god one is, the higher up the hierarchy one is…
these attempts to create hierarchies within America are not isolated
attempts, but they are not coordinated attempts but given the situation
of our collective confusion as to who we are and what are we to do,
the attempts to create hierarchies are not surprising…
everything is confused, mixed up, nothing has solidity or is grounded…
the mountains are jumping, the sea is raging and the river has jumped
its bank…and all our attempts to settle the mountains, the sea and
the river, so far has failed… as it should fail… because we
are acting from instincts like fear and anger and hate in attempting to
overcome the unsettle world… you cannot overcome with hate or fear
or anger…those base emotions only bring about more hate and anger and
fear… and we see this every day in the news… attempts to create
an hierarchy based on fear and anger and hate will fail… because
you can’t have an hierarchy based on the lower, base emotions…
it doesn’t work… Look at Nazi Germany… it failed…
and the Soviet Union, it too failed… and then look at the creation
of America… another attempt to settle the world and have knowledge
of who we are and what we are supposed to do…
“in order to form a more perfect union”…
“we hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
this language suggests that it is another attempt to understand our role in society
and what we are to do…
our age is one where we no longer understand what our roles are and what
we are suppose to do… who are we, when we don’t know or fail to understand
what our roles are to be… in society and within us…this pursuit of money/profit
has hidden from us… our real meaning and role within life and society…
we, we human beings, are so much more then lowly consumers and producers
of matter… but that role, the only role we are expected to play, fails to
to understand, explain, become all the possibilities that exist within
the human being… we have possibilities and potentials and they are
being wasted in some silly pursuit of wealth, of money and profits…
we, at some level, seem to understand this… and we are in the midst
of the mountains jumping and the seas raging and the river overflowing its bank…
all the themes of this thread come together here… who are we and what
are our possibilities? we cannot know if we only allow human possibilities
to be invested in the pursuit of money/profit…we cannot allow
hierarchies to limit us in our possibilities… we are more then our
role of consumer and producer and we are more then some false
attempt to create hierarchies… we are our possibilities…
and what are they? we shall not know until we
begin to challenge conventional notions of the form of our roles…
we cannot know until we challenge who we are and what are our
possibilities and just being a consumer/producer won’t allow us
the chance to discover who we are and what we are to do…
it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions,
you must have the courage for an attack upon your convictions…
Kropotkin