The only way to teach our filthy politicians is to bring in Golden Dawn, he trilled, his eyes locked in a fierce glare. These gentlemen are patriots, proud Greek nationalists, and they know how to deal with the scum, the foreigners who never pay taxes, who steal our jobs, who have taken over our streets. Sounds familiar? - elements of the right tend to spiral towards antipathy, ignorance, and fear-mongering. From my limited glimpse of history - aspects of authoritarian ideology underpin movements which mobilize butt-hurt middle-class folk who require a material enemy to pin their animosity on - rather than turn the gaze inward - it constantly seeks resolve in the perceived slights and inherent flaws of others rather than the system and ideas which reinforces and produces exploitation of those very people. The monster is greed, profit, and exploitation and yet many seek to characterize the problem as simply other people. How disingenuous! The problem is us. The monster is we. We collectively undermine our own rights and freedoms everyday when we complicity exercise our freedoms in the service of monstrous ideals and monstrous people. Do not, for a second, believe we are absolved or void of sin on any side of the divide for the divisions are arbitrary, meaningless, and evaporate if we first imagine doing so. Embrace your humanity with humility and know this minute parcel of existence will only be transcended with wisdom, love, and showing each other something more than what our forebears could. We need to try the difficult task of looking within, into that abyss within our own hearts and heads and see our faults for what they really are. We need compassion, dignity, love, and kindness. We need a deep sense of personal responsibility to and for the social and ecological webs we are ingrained within. On this mote of dust, we fight to be momentary masters of a fraction of a dot - and the consequent slew of misery, hatred, blood, and tears is in the service of what? Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Why waste your time, effort, and life in the service of self-destruction? Create something more than before. Learn something that makes you uncomfortable. Embrace the dissonance of difficult truth because growing only comes with the pain attached to the journey. But most of all - love. Simply love and learn to love. Learn to embrace and expand on what that notion is. Explore its meaning, its symbiosis, its solitude, its beauty, and its ugliness. Love builds us and tears us down and makes us stronger because of it. Love is a tricky thing, but I am convinced the older I get that its the only antidote to a life which has shown me so much pain. Love of learning, life, people, and knowledge propelled me to do the work necessary to grow because others loved me, carried me, and showed me something more. I could embrace a philosophy of self-pity (which I have at times), of nihilism (still kinda do), and blame (which is different than recognizing injustice) - but I only get disenchanted. I dont pretend to have all the answers, and I am woefully stupid in many ways but we have to make a claim to recognize that what we do know, for certain, is that our differences are only skin deep. Love is not arbitrated by a savior, dogma, gender, race, or creed or whatever boundary we establish to divide ourselves from one another. Difference, often seen as infallible and sacred to some, should serve to enhance rather than diminish. Embrace a doctrine of humility, patience, love, and wisdom. I try and often fail - but I am reminded of the countless lives that came before me. The timeless suffering of evolution and our ancestors enduring the pain of history to give us an ever renewing chance to be something more. Lets not waste it. We are on a brink.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 17:29:10 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015