My life revolves around three axes of angst at this time, in this space.
1.) We're supposed to be the "intelligent species", but every time something horrible happens, we resign and say "well, it was part of a plan" or "that's human nature". All the other creatures on this planet are powerless to understand or affect much of their life - that's why watching documentaries about the meerkats leaving one of their own to die is sad, because they can't stop it. The cameraman could, but he doesn't want to screw up the truth of his documentary.
So we could stop some things, but we choose not to - I don't know why that makes us the superior species.
2.) This reality has gone on long enough that we've gotten used to the misery - again. Greeks had a great society, and it collapsed. Romans had a great society, and it collapsed. We went through centuries of the Dark Ages, and we came out of it through Enlightenment. And if you listen closely to those who say they have the courage to change the things they can, the serenity to accept what they cannot, their wisdom to sort out which ought to be their next move is sliding more and more toward serenity. Noble and sublime people are staying seated on the porch because they don't want to risk what they might lose if they find courage and answer their conscience. Instead, they seek serenity and absolve themselves by saying it was all the greater plan of an omnipotent and divine power.
Realize this - the Bible ends with Revelation; a story where almost everyone dies while everything is destroyed around them, and people find this story inspiring because they are sure they will be removed from the arena with all that death and misery that they say is inevitable. Anyone who is willing to accept the end of the world solely because they think the good stuff is on the other side - and they alone (with a few of their friend) get to enjoy it without the rest of us. That sounds like the guy who will push you off the bridge so he can get to the other side.
And YET... and yet the atheists are maligned by these very same people because they insist we have no moral compass. What is more soulless than knowing the world will be destroyed but it's nothing to worry about because Our Father wants it to be so? It seems that whether humans evolved the huge pre-frontal cortex and ability to reason what is right and wrong when all the other animals cannot, or whether a divine entity created humans as some sort of a weird experiment just to teach a lesson - but only to a scarce few -
- it seems that whether we are a divine creation or a product of time and primordial slime, in the end, everyone will easily capitulate that a lot of us are comfortable turning that big brain OFF when the stress exceeds our limits.
3.) I saw things no one wants to see. In fact, no one even wants me to tell them the parable of what I saw, because it's not a pleasant story. It's not an inspiring story. It's not a story of redemption or hope or inspiration. If anything, it's a horrifying cautionary tale about the ideal nuclear family who, in their self assurance that everything is just the way the models advertised, can dissemble into a nightmare nonetheless. And when one guy starts screaming that something horrible is happening, can we please just stop making it worse? Can we please put up a sign further back up the road to warn people what awaits down this path - then the guy pounding in the signpost is knocked over and told to stay quiet.
Because people don't want to hear about bad stories, even if they are on their way to embodying one.
It was once seen as a noble effort - when one had walked down a dead-end road and found horrors that shock the conscience - to tell a cautionary tale to alert others to the hazards of that particular trail. Somewhere down the road, FREEDOM has been perverted into something Doestoyevsky warned us about in the late 19th century; being so invested in being free that eventually one will do that which will destroy him, solely to prove that the freedom to do harm to oneself is freedom nonetheless.
"All things in moderation" was once a sage instruction to a rewarding life. Now, in the age where everything must be a spectacle, even a horrible one, just so more eyeballs will turn toward it and generate advertising revenue, the only parable left is "Make it big, make it loud, and make it unavoidable." Someone will surely put up a billboard at the location of a 68-car pileup where dozens of people were killed so they can advertise cell phones .... not so you can call for help, but so you can watch kitten videos while you wait for a tow-truck.
1.) We're supposed to be the "intelligent species", but every time something horrible happens, we resign and say "well, it was part of a plan" or "that's human nature". All the other creatures on this planet are powerless to understand or affect much of their life - that's why watching documentaries about the meerkats leaving one of their own to die is sad, because they can't stop it. The cameraman could, but he doesn't want to screw up the truth of his documentary.
So we could stop some things, but we choose not to - I don't know why that makes us the superior species.
2.) This reality has gone on long enough that we've gotten used to the misery - again. Greeks had a great society, and it collapsed. Romans had a great society, and it collapsed. We went through centuries of the Dark Ages, and we came out of it through Enlightenment. And if you listen closely to those who say they have the courage to change the things they can, the serenity to accept what they cannot, their wisdom to sort out which ought to be their next move is sliding more and more toward serenity. Noble and sublime people are staying seated on the porch because they don't want to risk what they might lose if they find courage and answer their conscience. Instead, they seek serenity and absolve themselves by saying it was all the greater plan of an omnipotent and divine power.
Realize this - the Bible ends with Revelation; a story where almost everyone dies while everything is destroyed around them, and people find this story inspiring because they are sure they will be removed from the arena with all that death and misery that they say is inevitable. Anyone who is willing to accept the end of the world solely because they think the good stuff is on the other side - and they alone (with a few of their friend) get to enjoy it without the rest of us. That sounds like the guy who will push you off the bridge so he can get to the other side.
And YET... and yet the atheists are maligned by these very same people because they insist we have no moral compass. What is more soulless than knowing the world will be destroyed but it's nothing to worry about because Our Father wants it to be so? It seems that whether humans evolved the huge pre-frontal cortex and ability to reason what is right and wrong when all the other animals cannot, or whether a divine entity created humans as some sort of a weird experiment just to teach a lesson - but only to a scarce few -
- it seems that whether we are a divine creation or a product of time and primordial slime, in the end, everyone will easily capitulate that a lot of us are comfortable turning that big brain OFF when the stress exceeds our limits.
3.) I saw things no one wants to see. In fact, no one even wants me to tell them the parable of what I saw, because it's not a pleasant story. It's not an inspiring story. It's not a story of redemption or hope or inspiration. If anything, it's a horrifying cautionary tale about the ideal nuclear family who, in their self assurance that everything is just the way the models advertised, can dissemble into a nightmare nonetheless. And when one guy starts screaming that something horrible is happening, can we please just stop making it worse? Can we please put up a sign further back up the road to warn people what awaits down this path - then the guy pounding in the signpost is knocked over and told to stay quiet.
Because people don't want to hear about bad stories, even if they are on their way to embodying one.
It was once seen as a noble effort - when one had walked down a dead-end road and found horrors that shock the conscience - to tell a cautionary tale to alert others to the hazards of that particular trail. Somewhere down the road, FREEDOM has been perverted into something Doestoyevsky warned us about in the late 19th century; being so invested in being free that eventually one will do that which will destroy him, solely to prove that the freedom to do harm to oneself is freedom nonetheless.
"All things in moderation" was once a sage instruction to a rewarding life. Now, in the age where everything must be a spectacle, even a horrible one, just so more eyeballs will turn toward it and generate advertising revenue, the only parable left is "Make it big, make it loud, and make it unavoidable." Someone will surely put up a billboard at the location of a 68-car pileup where dozens of people were killed so they can advertise cell phones .... not so you can call for help, but so you can watch kitten videos while you wait for a tow-truck.
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