The Divine Artist Is Always Creating

One is not defined by perfection. Nothing is in its ideal form. To reduce something to the ideal is to freeze it. However, when you arrest something in it's progress in this way, you kill it. The constant of reality is movement. 

In the beginning the world was formless and void. The creation story is about the Creator bringing form, and thus purpose to this void. To observe the follow on stories with any amount of honesty is to see this process of bringing order from chaos and meaning out of the void is continued in various and complex permutations. Thus no single instant can be reduced to anything other than the part it plays in the whole. 

This is not to say there is no right or wrong. There are in fact things that bring life and things that do not bring life, and to assume otherwise is to be as equally imperceptive as reading the scripture without recognizing the constancy of both change and the creative process of the Father. 

However, we come at this life giving impulse from a meta perspective, and in a transformational way especially when we forgive in the instant what transgressed us, as it too can be redeemed. This forgiveness must also be applied to the self. We can indeed by grace transcend that which once bound us. 

We choose to participate accepting that things are more than the sum of their parts. In faith I accept and choose to participate with the Creator because I believe the Divine Artist is still creating. 

Superstition

It is common in conservative circles to long for a return to the "golden days".  It is also common among progressives to put great faith in a future where the arch of history trends towards justice (that is if evil conservatives don't destroy everything before we get there).  Now, even in Socrates' time there were those who envisioned a return to the good old days, just as there were iconoclasts preaching faith in humanity and a coming age of peace on earth if only they were in charge.

The same strains keep coming up throughout history. However, perhaps the most insidious one, and especially so because it crosses ideologies, is the concept, conscious or otherwise, that we are somehow different, and superior now than before. Of course with the passage of time the civilization has accumulated great knowledge and achievements. We have an infinity of information at arm's reach through whatever you are reading this on. We live longer, go more places, have more experiences than at any other time in human history. However, the hubris of modernity has blinded us to the reality that as the island of our knowledge expands, so too does the coastline of the unknown.

We are drunk on information, and yet malnourished of understanding, and even surrounded with greater security and opportunity than ever before, we are fearful.  And so we prove we are not in fact much more advanced than nomadic ancestors by doing what humans have always done, which is to fall for superstition. 

We laugh at the idea of thinking we have to sacrifice woodland creatures to appease some maleficent deity, and we cringe at the thought of sacrificing a child to the same, and yet with superficial cosmetic changes, many still do both. 

Superstition is the dark side of pattern matching, the process of identifying cause and effect relationships. The problem arises when we deceive ourselves into such a relationship were there never was one, and yet so fearful of the unknown, do everything we can to manipulate a system that never existed in the first place. It used to look like the above example of the sacrificial woodland creature, or virgin, first born, etc. Now it looks like aborting a child because a test shows a possibility for genetic defects. The rationalization is that your are saving a unborn fetes from a life of suffering. When considering the fact, that, a) everyone suffers, and b) a "defect" has been the catalyst for some of the most transformational characters in history, and c) that the child doesn't have a context for viewing their life as suffering to begin with, it becomes obvious the original motive is nothing but a superstitious rationalization for the real motive, which that the parent doesn't want to suffer the unknown of caring for a disabled child.

This is a dramatic example, but this is found in banal forms everywhere. The self esteem craze I grew up with posited that high self esteem lead to high achievement. Many of us grew up being told we could do anything, be anything, deserved everything. Predictably, when we found out this wasn't true, many simple blamed everyone but themselves for being in a predicament as old as the species. You often have to earn your way to something you desire. In essence, the self esteem obsession was a superstitious belief that put the effect ahead of the cause, and trained a lot of people to be entitled asshats, a condition that is going to take some time and possibly a major drop in the standard of living, to give voice and action to the valorous ideals we, so many of us, hold deep in our hearts and minds. 

Take political correctness for example. We like to think we have moved beyond the Inquisition because we aren't heretics at the stake, and this is certainly an improvement. However, when something you said a decade plus before it was considered offensive can still destroy your reputation, we have an unbalanced morality.  Look close enough and we have all failed to a degree in the ways we most punish others. When group identity, which never takes into account actual complexity, like that the group itself is a construct, is more important than the choices and character of the individual, we are simply returning to the spiritual trailer park of codependency and group solidarity being more important than right or wrong.  

The only way out of this cave of shadows into the daylight of reality is honesty. Brutal self examination. Actually telling it like it is. Honesty is a blunt force weapon. And it is pain that will enlighten us. 

There Is No "Never Again".

Everyone has fighting in their blood. This isn't some mystical statement. It is a historical and biological fact. If we didn't, our ancestors would have died out and we would not now be here. We all descended in a way from warriors. The vast majority of human history and prehistory is chaotic, violent, and dangerous. It is true that we are a social species capable of great cooperation, as well as great sacrifice. However, we are, and have always been predatory. It is important to remember this observations as it can inform much of our perception of current times, in which it is increasingly in vogue to hold any allusion to violence as both taboo and glamorized like Victorian notions of sex. 

The idea that we can make love not war misses several critical steps between where we are now and this dreamed of utopia, such as the wills of everyone else who shares the same planet. Thucydides said that all war is ultimately the result of fear, honor, and interest. He may have added that it is in fact the perception of these that underpins the majority of human conflict. Most violence comes down to misunderstanding, lack of judgment, and miscalculation, and, contrary to those who believe in an impending singularity to save us from ourselves, we are more connected than ever, and yet understand each other less than ever. It is for this reason, as well as the empirical evidence of continued and increasing conflict throughout the world which leads me to conclude that whether it be due to misunderstanding or not, we are not becoming more peaceful. 

However, at the same time that most violence is underpinned by misunderstanding, as Sun Tzu said, victory goes to he who has deeper understanding of himself, the environment, and the enemy. The ancients claimed that wisdom held the world together, and there is a reason Athena was the goddess of both war and wisdom. Misunderstanding aside, what we must realize, and what those dreaming on of a utopia do not, is that once a fight has started, it must soon be ended, and on terms favorable to the greater good. Surrender does not satisfy this requirement. 

And so it falls to those of us willing to be the current generation's incarnation of the warriors who made our existence today possible to step forward and endure the sacrifice, pain, suffering, and death to end the fight. It is unfortunate that just as we understand each other less than ever, we fail to understand those who fight even less so, and that we repress this facet of existence even more than Victorian sexuality. At the same time and contrary to popular belief, there is no never again. So long as people dream of an impossible utopia, conflict remains all the more possible. 

Banality Kills

A shark attack is extraordinary, as is being stuck by lightning, contracting Ebola, and even being killed in a mass shooting. Extraordinary cases draw mass attention like fresh blood draws flies. The main difference is the attention is not nearly as nourishing for the masses as the blood is for the flies. 

Meanwhile, some drunk driver just ran into a family on the sidewalk. It only makes the local news. A cancer patient lit up his last smoke on his death bed. No one noticed. A homeless person passed away from alcohol poisoning over night. The EMTs picking him up were the only ones to marginally care. Life expectancy is longer than it has ever been and still over half the national population is too fat to enjoy it, and they are dying. We are all dying. Many in extremely preventable ways. Many, many more in the ordinary ways than the extraordinary that captures mass attention and focuses national "dialogue".

It is the equivalent of straining out gnats and swallowing camels. We die in mass numbers from heart failure, but panic at the thought of an unloaded assault rifle. We continue to go to fast food chains as if it were no issue, and at the same time express concern over the need for "common sense" gun laws. We don't get vaccinated for the flue, which kills far more people than the public pays attention to, and demand the borders be shut down at the thought of Ebola slithering across public streets. 

We even say things to the effect of gay marriage will destroy the foundation of modern society, while not considering the absurdly high and climbing heterosexual divorce rate not at all correlated to equality laws. 

We critique the speck in our neighbor's eye, and forget the plank in our own. We consider the small, while the banal kills us. 

You Can Choose Your Identity

As the essence of the enlightenment was the subservience of faith to rational thought, so the essence of the postmodern world is the subservience of rational thought to identity. 

We are very near coming full circle into something about the same as believing thunder is caused by an angry god, and that belief going unchecked lest it be an oppression to inform someone something other than what their identity demands. 

We are even now approaching a structure similar to that which demanded the excommunication of scholars because they proposed the earth rotated around the sun because this was against the correct beliefs of the day. 

We are coming to a point that, in the interests of not offending anyone, the only reasonable solution is complete segregation of everyone from everyone, lest someone commit the offence of cultural appropriation. 

Now let me ask, is this really the world you want to live in?

Rather than the circular banter approaching the absurdity of monkeys in a cage panicking over a picture of a snake that is in fact the logical conclusion to the postmodern politically correct ethic, look up from the PC viral post you may be about to make, or at least just look up. Walk outside. Notice that there are homeless people on the sidewalk. Now ask, what is more important, words leading to irrational non-action for fear of being seen as oppressive, or actions requiring no words to alleviate oppression. You really don't have to go far to find the real thing. 

Most main streets and back allies in Urban America will lead you rite to it. Most rural farms worked by low/no wage workers will show the same thing. Most of the rest of the world experiences it as a daily norm. Most people don't have to think about it, much like some say privilege is. 

The struggle of our times does not have to be over sanitizing that which is not real, but rather over jumping into the reality that is not sanitary and doing something about it. 

Self serving ignorance of the chaos around us is neither satisfying nor practical in the long term, not for the single individual that even faintly aspires to do that which is the essence of humanity, and that is to care. 

Making a Difference

I find it important to repeat myself at times. Repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity breads mastery. And it is mastery over specific things we seek to accomplish here. In specific, we seek mastery over the winds and high seas of chaos that threaten ever to detour us all, from mass society, to the single individual, from the light of reason and justice.

The world we currently live in is not getting more peaceful. The looming threat of a localized disease epidemic turning into a generalized pandemic, the rise of an extremist movement that hearkens back to several millennia of human history we would happily forget, and the continuation of inter state politics by other means we now see in our old adversarial area of influence. We have options as to how to deal with this. Succumbing to low grade panic with minimal commitment may be the most readily available method to respond.

On the Other hand, and this is where I repeat myself, forgo debates about policy and the need to blame elected officials for the current conditions we face. Take responsibility as the single individual for the world you live in.

The winds of chaos beat upon us all, but it is ever easy to ignore them via a low grade mass panic when they are far off.

This only masks the banal evils close by. It is not by the might of some overarching government policy that that homeless man on the street corner is going to get someone to treat him like a human being, and it is not by government power (because that has hence to for failed) that that street walker who is probably under the age of 18 is going to get anyone to treat her like anything more than a sex toy at worst and criminal at best.

Rather, as I have said before, do not be a slave to fashion. Do not go along with the popular anxiety of the hour. These only annul us to awareness of what is going on around us all the time.

Lift up modern society and there you will see the underbelly. The real world is not clean, from a distance, or from close by. But what is is is an opportunity for the single individual to change reality for someone more a victim of the world we live in than that individual.

It is for things like this that, if we would allow ourselves to delve into, more meaning and power would be found than 10,000,000 hours spent fearing whatever is the fashion of the day to fear.

Defend the weak. Insist on justice for the downcast, and do not allow fear of the distant to distract you from the work at hand. These are the precepts by which the single individual becomes the agent of change in his/her world. Isn't that what we all wanted to do anyway, make a difference?

Don't Hide

What you don't know will indeed kill you. But it is the emotional response we substitute for what we do know, but refuse to trust that leads to insanity.

In the face of the exotic and other and terrifying, it seems that no amount of rational evaluating can overcome the visceral terror that seems to naturally ensue, shortly to prevent all rational evaluation, and to infect the human thought process more surly than a physical contagion ever would. 

Nothing travels faster than bad news, and at the same time nothing seems to be harder to cure than irrational fear.  

We try hard to ascribe meaning and derive something of substance from everything that causes us panic. However, the majority of the time, it all comes down to not being able to distinguish the signal from the noise. 

There are many ways to deal with irrational fear, but the surest way to not cure it is to hide. As with nearly everything else, playing the victim is the quickest path to perceptions becoming realities. 

In the face of that which causes you panic, take the initiative. Charge strait in. Turn the tables and determine your own course. You will be amazed at what you can do when you have to.