THE WORLD

 

       robert motherwell

Today's NPR broadcasting was almost entirely the shooting of the kids. Big questions being asked, which I have a hard time taking seriously. Do something about guns? No. Do something about the mental health disaster in the country? No. A lot of people talking about the complex web of what is behind guys taking guns and blowing away several people, then, most often, themselves. Nothing substantial is going to change about guns. A bone will be thrown to the people making the most noise; magazine clips, or whatever they are, may be outlawed. NRA taking a Time Out to figure how they'll face this one. So many people calling for ACTION where gun restrictions are concerned that have already been necessary several decades. They'll come out with a "Plan B" like Boner that will be nothing more than a punch line to guarantee a laugh. They'll talk it to death and never get an understanding of what they're talking about. A committee will draw a few conclusions, announce their conclusions and it will be over, after they're paid several million as consultants.

The Oklahoma City bombing didn't change anything. Our politicians are afraid of the NRA. The American people seem now to be addressing the politicians at their most inept time in the history of the country demanding they stand up to the NRA, which they're not going to do. Why is it after more than a century of the science of psychology, the only social benefit to come from it is manipulation of the masses by politicians, corporations and military? Commercials on tv are the most practical application of what has been learned from over a century of study. We have psycho-pharmacology for mood-enhancers to put smiles for no reason at all on faces. Behind closed doors, "What're we gonna do, fellers? The natives are restless. We gotta give em somethin. Who we gonna sacrifice?" Every kind of game is being played somewhere on the globe. I'm glad I'm not involved. I'm happy for the sound wisdom I've been informed by, to be in the world not of it. It's one of those sayings that never gives us a reason why. We have to try it to find out why. I've never thought of it as a means to an end, but it has guided me, something I have chosen for myself without a notion of it having a benefit other than being disconnected from the urban maelstrom.

Living in the country is as much in the world as in the city. The world is a belief system. I've come to see it as the climb up the ladder of assets, seeing self in relation to others, ambition, status, position, importance. Even believing I can make a difference, however small. I take being in the world like everyday life making a living, living one's life without longing to be rich or important. Living one's life in relation to the context of being surrounded by people who believe in the Climb, believe it is getting them somewhere with more money, higher status, higher notion of self-worth. And then you die. That's what it is about the world. Like when you get to the top of the ladder of success, like Joseph Campbell said, you discover you climbed the wrong ladder. In a recent Bob Dylan song, he says, 'You find when you're at the top that you're really on the bottom.' If ambition is for the top, then it amounts to ambition for the bottom. Tiger Woods, for example. He worked his way to the top and the media took him to the bottom. Lance Armstrong, too. Too much in this world is fickle for it to appeal to me. I've found as a rule of thumb for myself that the higher up the money ladder you look, the more fickle people become. I've seen that to where I take it for a truth. I stay away from people whose self-worth is their assets.

That's how I interpret, of the world. Of means connected to by attachments. Belief systems can be attachments. We look at some people who don't believe what we believe, and they're wrong. And from their side, we're wrong. No two ways about it. Both wrong. I'm wondering if it can be said that anything that can be divided into one right, one wrong, turns out to be both wrong. Probably not. The World, the actual world itself, is within. It's attachment. It's the need to be connected to something, not to be alone. Desire is a connection, a strong connection, the mother of attachment. In desire, in wanting is a hook in Of the world. It gets subtle. It gets so subtle, I don't see any need to go that far. I use it as a rule of thumb, not an exact science. I live in the world just fine, knowing good people I enjoy knowing, seeing movies I enjoy, reading books, painting, writing, driving a 93 Buick that runs as good as new. That's my In the world. And Caterpillar my friend. Being Of the world is being invested in it, having something to gain or lose. Being In the world is no investment. It's living day to day having a good time. No worries about losing or gaining.

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FINDING BALANCE

I'm noticing something happening more and more in the back pages of the news that seldom gets broadcast time. Swindlers from banks and loan operations are being arrested and given prison sentences fairly regularly now. Listening to NPR, occasionally they tell of one, but not very often. This is a repeat of what I mean when I say NPR is not liberal. There is no liberal in America. We have two right wings, which is why the American eagle can't fly. Inspiration for what American can be has faded out, pushed out by the Reaganista assault on intelligence that has taken away Hope for the future. The word Progress hasn't even been used since 1980, the year the Reagan Junta took power. I find news of these different arrests surfing on the internet. It's quite a lot more than our media lets us in on, which tells me the corporate media is invested in keeping it quiet that these swindlers of the American people, the cancer within, are even an issue. Evidently, the corporate decision makers don't want us knowing that they're all swindlers dealing from the bottom of the deck.


I'm getting, for the first time in my life, an understanding of the American character that shows we've been a screwed up bunch of people from the start. Like Buffalo Bill's genocide on the buffalo and the genocidal attempt on the natives of the land, just like they did and continue to do in Australia. My time spent in military under duress for being born in a nation operating on a war-time economy that has to keep wars going to keep the economy going. We Americans are a conglomerate of people from all over the world. What we do, everyone in the world would do given the opportunities. So to say we're Americans with a mental illness particular to us bypasses that we are composed of people from every place on the globe where people can live. The American mental illness is universal, a pie slice of collective humanity. To say we're crazy because we're Americans is the same as saying the human condition is crazy. I don't believe anyone would dispute that. So much is changing so fast now that we don't even get a foothold into a way of living that will last more than a few years. It's rough to have one's culture go away from under your feet. It's also rough never having a chance to be a part of a community because culture is going away from under our feet all the time now.


We're in a time where nothing holds still. We can't hang on to anything with any confidence, certainly not money. Finally, the Bank is being seen for what it is really about: taking. It's a very interesting time in this way, that we're getting closer and closer to how things really are, continuus change the nature of life on this earth. Culture, religion, economy, used to hold change down to a minimum over some thousands of years. Stasis was coming in on us fast. The world of civilization is like a pot of stew on the stove. Set it to boiling, the parts swirl, stir it and the parts swirl more. Turn the heat down and the parts settle into place at the bottom, a different arrangement of the same parts this time. That's how I see what we're going through in the spiritual dimensions. The heat was turned on HI all through the 20th Century, the parts stirring, everything in motion, in change, in continuous change. It kind of feels like living in motels. It keeps us confused, longing for security and government at least "for" the people, since it's never been "by" the people. Easy targets for manipulation. A century and a half of the science of psychology, and what has it come to? It's used for manipulation of the masses via Xtremely sophisticated  methods to bypass the viewer's good sense. All the advertising I've ever seen or heard is telling us to bypass our good sense and buy stuff for every reason there is but needing it.


Yard sales are popping up every weekend. I marvel when I drive by the places where tables are piled high with trash from Walmart, Kmart, Dollar General, Family Dollar. A multi-colored mass of objects that once were wanted. Though once bought, they're not wanted any more and they lose their lustre. So what if it cost $15 new, we'll take 50c for it just to get it out of the house. True recycling. We'll see more and more yard sales until the IRS cracks down on pocket change tax evasion. From there onward in our downward spiral we'll be using barter system a great deal more, trading. When trading is taxed, we'll all become criminals. As it is, the War on Drugs (War ont he American People) has criminalized at least 2/3 of the American people. Gradually, government is making the word citizen to mean criminal. It looks good with the republican half of the population wanting to shut down government. That sounds appealing in some ways. What they know is when government is shut down, military takes over. That's what they're working toward, police state, and we're there. Military rule without recourse is what both our parties are marching us toward, one giant-step at a time, while the population is asleep in tv.


I saw a headline today of the CEO of Starbucks saying the American Dream is over. So what. It was a nightmare of a dream. The Dream is to get real rich real fast. Ethics has nothing to do with it. Using people as stair steps is understood as how it's done. Then you get the biggest house on the highest hill and you come down with cancer. Even if you join the Best country club, only the idea of it is fulfilling. I'm coming to see that the way of living scripture recommends are treasures that we can take with us to the grave. Love is the way of the spirit. It is the spirit that lives on. Aligning self with the way of the spirit, the Tao, would make transition easier from physical world to spirit world, and less shocking. When you get down to it, we are souls with bodies, not bodies with souls. As the soul is who we are, we have a spiritual nature foremost. Egoic wanting security, wanting, wanting, is identifying with the body. Attachment to the body makes it awfully difficult to feel comfortable about the temporal nature of self-identity. It's possibly that disconnect that creates desire to satisfy the body's whims. Identifying with desire is the problem. The spiritual path, in my way of seeing it, is about releasing self from identification with desires, wants, gotta-haves.


The American Dream is about desire for more satisfaction of the body, none whatsoever for the soul. Religions have become so identified with the temporal body, the spirit rides in the trunk, if at all. The American Dream has been the carrot on a stick luring the donkey forward. Since the republican intentional destruction of the world economy, it's looking like the party of greed is the cancer within. The American Dream is that cancer. Balance is a necessary condition in the world of duality. A shift I'm seeing now is the American way has gone so far out of balance that some time it will have to come back into balance. The continuous motion of going out of balance and coming back into balance can create forward momentum. Like the mentronome. It goes way out of balance at one end, goes back into balance then way off balance at the other end, then back through balance to imalance. It's a kind of natural momentum like tide going out and coming in. I'm thinking that continuous rhythm of into balance / out of balance / into balance / out of balance is the rhythm of balance. Looking at American History, it's been a matter of in and out of balance all the way along. Possibly this alternating current is what keeps us going, like breathing and the heart beat.

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