There are a lot of memes posted on FB about the power of love, that love is a gift, that we should understand and forgive and be like Buddha or Jesus or whatever. Yes, philosophically, idealistically, those are great standards to live up to. But ... we are all human. We all have a reptilian cortex. We all have 98% chimpanzee DNA. And ... just being legally human is not the same as being humane. I have known people who -- because it is a survival skill -- have learned how to talk a great game of humanity. They have learned the Buddhist bullshit, the new age bullshit, the Zen bullshit, the Christian bullshit, the anarchist bullshit, the hippie bullshit, whatever flavor of bullshit they want to spread like frosting over themselves to disguise the fact that theyre still acting like chimpanzees -- No, strike that. Even chimpanzees have more moral behavior than some human beings. And thats my point. Yes, I would like to live up to that standard of being able to understand and forgive and love all people. And if I were some kind of a cult leader, I could create that kind of reality around myself. BTW, this is one of the appeals of cults. Its part of the appeal of those human potential movement training seminars -- you get to live in an environment where much of the toxicity and disagreement and power games are sublimated into a larger vision. But in what we like to call the real world where we are continually tumbled in an avalanche of uncontrollable events, constantly being thrown into interactions with strangers, people we do not know and will likely never see again, we start to go into a protective mode -- all those others are OTHERS. Not safe. It breeds little insanities. And then bigger ones. Remember the story of the two wolves fighting inside? The good wolf and the bad wolf? Which one will you feed? Its too easy to feed the bad wolf. And the more you feed it, the stronger it becomes. I have known people who have nurtured the bad wolf, who have fed it, strengthened it, raised it to to the size of a dire wolf -- and then pretended to the rest of the world that the good wolf has won. And .. they do not even realize themselves that they have done this. Ive done it too. It takes a conscious effort not to give in to what we euphemistically call the dark side. Its not the dark side. Its not something outside of ourselves thats trying to corrupt us -- its part of ourselves that we either learn to control or not. Or ... as is usually the case, we keep it hidden, only unleashing it when we think we can get away with it. There are people I have known who are no longer part of my life. It is not that they are not good people. It is not that they do not aspire to be good people -- it is that they dont seem to recognize when they are so caught up in their own hurt that they are using that as a justification for hurting others. I can understand it. I can even forgive it -- sometimes. But when someone makes that a consistent pattern of behavior, and when they create damage in my life, when I have to clean up after them, its time to pull the big red lever that controls the trap door. Now Im not mad at anyone in particular today. In fact, Im having a very good day -- the thought did occur to me (because Im cleaning up some of the damages) that sometimes just pulling the big red lever isnt enough. Sometimes, you really want to say, Because youre behaving like an asshole, thats why! It would be a futile gesture -- perceived as an attack rather than a thoughtful analysis -- but sometimes you want to say it anyway. Todays ramble through the tangled roots of thought.
Posted on: Sun, 04 May 2014 19:05:35 +0000
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