This morning I woke up feeling particularly sensitive to absurdity. I apply my "doing is becoming" philosophy to all, as once you see significance in anything, you see it in everything. The first few news stories I reflected upon today made me climb atop a great big soapbox. Here's the result:
When you hear the phrase "new normal," you should realize you and your family are being sold lies based on fear and private greed. It's your money. It's your quality of life. If you held the actual cash in your hand, how would you spend it? Would you continue to kill children whose only crime was to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time? Would you continue to send your neighbors' children into harm's way to intervene in a power struggle, or fight against tribal people, thousands of miles away from your home? Would you give it all and promise more to the fattest guy in the biggest house at the end of the street? Or would you provide clean water, food, clothing, medicine, housing, jobs, libraries, art, learning opportunities (insert what makes your life meaningful and livable here) to yourself and your immediate family?
What you would provide to your family is what you should extend to the collective family of humanity. It's very simple. It's the basic rule of every spiritual and ethical tradition known to mankind. This rule doesn't specify "others whom are just like you." It says very plainly and clearly, "Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you." Just plain "others." All others, no exceptions.
Why do you give up agency just because the dollars flow unseen from your electronic paycheck to a paid representative of the people and a treasurer far away? Why do you let them scare you with their tales of woe? Why do you believe the world will end if we don't do as legislatures and corporations say we must? If they got us into this mess by misspending our money, why do we trust them with the solution? In a democratic republic, it is the hired (elected) person's duty to be responsive to their constituents' actual needs, not to sell their version of reality to us and collect their fee. Stop listening to opinion makers, and start reflecting and crafting your own ideas. Share those ideas with others, especially your paid representative. If they are unresponsive, vote them out of office. It's a beautifully simple system. All it requires is that you author your own life. Care. Share. Act. Cooperate and collaborate to build a livable world. You will be enriched by it personally, and the globe will be a lot more welcoming.
So take a few minutes to reflect:
How many of us wake up each day and say we need to drop a bomb on someone to keep going?
How many of us wake up and say "I must eat"?
The answers are so obvious when you drop the news cycle rhetoric.
What are your actual needs? Do you think there is a person on earth whose real human needs are any different?
Humans are storytellers by nature, always seeing meaning, but sometimes we forget who's telling the tale. You are accountable for the narrative you live. Choose well.
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