Maybe this world is another planet’s hell. --Aldous Huxley Something like this idea has occurred to me quite a bit lately. Consider: This space-time and the heavy weight of our anxiety about our brief and pain-filled purchase with in it--the appalling-yet-unnecessary venality and cruelty and inequality that characterizes the human world--natures own profligate waste and humanitys habitual indifference to beauty and to the races long-term survival--it sometimes offends me to the point of speechlessness. Or, worse, it offends me to the point of impotent rage expressed in angry words and Facebook memes. The Twitter Ages own John the Baptist, a voice whining in the wilderness. The almost paralyzing insanity of living in a world where psychopathy suits you better for success than compassion, where emotional sensitivity, compassion, and a commitment to peaceful solutions makes you vulnerable to monsters and ineffective as an agent for change sometimes fills me with such loathing, such appalled repugnance that I can easily entertain the idea that universe and all life within it is a product of meaningless chance--or even malice. But, then I consider what it means to be offended by the above facts and conditions. If this is just what it is, then how can anyone formulate a notion of something better, more rational, more sustainable? What accounts for the sense within the hearts of some that this space-time and the rules by which it operates needs improving? I think gardeners are on to something. The extravagance and waste and amoral pursuit of existence in the natural world leads only to riot. It is not so much the strong that survive as the prolific and opportunistic. It takes love and craft and information and will to create a world in which food and flowers can withstand the exuberance of grasses and beetles and fungi. Through this metaphor, I can simply walk out of hell and into a verdant and familiar space. The heart-mind is the patch of earth we have been given, and we can let it run riot or create something deep and satisfying and nourishing. We each must work our plot, pulling weeds and picking stones and pruning excess and feeding positive growth. We must investigate the growing habits of our native tendencies and talents and adapt our labors to take advantage of them. When I focus on the life-long task of tending the garden of the heart-mind, the loathing and repugnance and hopelessness I feel looking at the Big Picture fade and are replaced with the beauty and sense of accomplishment a well-ordered garden reliably generate. Now, to keep this insight in view rather than letting the clamor of the evening news and the countless daily reminders of our collective failure to be human from crowding it out again.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 17:09:52 +0000
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