WORLD

the world

I've studied this word world for some time. Earth is the planet. World is the creation of the human mind, civilization, culture. The way of the mind is my brief way of looking at it. How I know the difference is God's creation is made of curves. Mind's creation is made of straight lines, like architecture, pixels. Mind's creation of straight lines begins the process of entropy upon creation. In God's creation the curved lines grow and keep on growing. They leave seeds to spread over the ground; they keep going.

There are subtle distinctions to be found. I can't help but see "the world" as the part having to do with money, for one thing. The god Mammon is the god of money. He's not a benevolent god. He couldn't care less about us, individually, except as conduits of money. It's a useful thing, a kind of energy, and handled consciously it's not a problem. Handled unconsciously, the way most of us handle it, it's a problem. As something to have a passion about, I never got it. One of the major reasons I let go of watching television was that it is entirely about money and money only. It's about corporate money. Corporate, like Mammon, thinks of us only as conduits of money. Money determines our class system.

It seems like the poor and the rich are both slaves to money. The poor have to stay where they were born because they can't afford to go anyplace else. The rich can't afford to leave where they're born, because they often have to live near the source of their wealth. In the middle, we're free to move around, climb or whatever. The poor and the rich have money in the front of their minds all the time. I like to think about something else sometimes. I don't even like keeping up with a check book and credit cards. One of the benefits of wealth: having an accountant to fuss over the money.

The way I've lived my life has shown a terrible indifference to money. I wonder how much of that has to do with not watching television? I'm missing the continuum of being informed I don't have enough money to buy all the stuff I want. I think the indifference for money and television came from the same place, not one from the other. It has to go back to church 5 times a week since age 6 when a preacher sat me down and explained salvation briefly, told me about Jesus saving sins, asked if I believed. I said, yeah. He said, You're saved. I said, ok. I didn't believe there was anything to it then, and don't believe there was now. It's the same as sprinkling a baby. Nothing but a ceremony that says, I belong. A kid 6 years old isn't going to get it. But at the same time probably gets it as good as a great many adults. Whether it took or not, I don't know.

When I got away from church upon finding my first apartment, I wanted nothing more to do with it. Excess church had turned me against it. I wanted with a great deal of might to learn about the world, jump in and run like a dog that's been let off a chain, run and run and run. The world, the world, the world. I looked up to worldly people. Tried to learn how to become one. It never took. I never wanted money bad enough to afford the stuff I thought I wanted, like an obnoxiously expensive car.

In Daytona, I think 1988, I saw in the paper where a young woman who worked in a nursing home won the big multi-million dollar lottery. Her answer when asked what she was going to do with the money was, buy me a corvette. That's the same kind of sense I'd have with it. Buy me a different colored Mercedes convertible for every day of the week. Livin big. Lotsa bling. A heart-shaped swimming pool. A servant to keep it and the cars clean. A new house. Then have to sell house and cars to pay taxes on them. Then end up in debt that lottery jackpot amount. That's where bridge jumping comes in. Leave the debts to the heirs.

I'm thinking, too, that the world can apply to the me-first attitude that's as American as Budweiser. The notion that I have to be the center of attention, have to be numbero uno, the one with the answers, the big dog, is the world. Knowing exactly where I stand on the ladder in relation to my peers by income and assets is too boring. I'm on the bottom, where I want to be. Out of the running. When it gets right down to the core of the matter, the world is in the heart. Attachment to non-living creations of the human mind is the same as attachment to the body. Attachment to self is the beginning of other attachments.

Getting down to the heart of the matter, attachment to self creates all these other bindings with class, appearance, surrounding oneself with mirrors. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's my opinion, it's my belief, it's my conclusion, it's my idea, it's my own. Mine. Me. I. Right there, I believe, is the bulls eye. Self. The world is in myself. The world in myself draws the world outside myself to it. They sit together and talk, brag about any old thing, whatever comes up. The world is no more with me, so to speak, driving down Main St or sitting at home reading.

I'm thinking this in-the-world-not-of- it exercise has to do with attachment in myself. Nothing to do with what's outside myself, like money or a new car or being on stage at the Hillbilly Show. It all has to do with my heart's attachments to this or that or position or being looked up to, being thought a lot of, those kinds of attachments. That's the world. The belief that my self is more special than another self is the way of the world. The belief that my self is the least of the others is the way of God. Attachments are difficult to let go of when it comes time to leave the body. I'm getting a better understanding of what Jr meant when he told me some years ago he saw everyone better than him. The measure of his humility. I think he was saying he was not attached to self in different words. As I knew him, I can say he was not attached to self. Now I don't worry over what the world is out there, because in here is where it is and I have control if I want it.