On common ground

There is this feeling. I can't quite find the right word to describe it.

A complacency?
A comfortability?
A contentment?
A lackadaisicality?

No. But a sense of something being permanent. Sticking with us. Being 'around'. Dependable, explainable. Meeting expectations. Becoming average in the sense that to be without it would be out of the norm. That to not have it would be, what - strange? Uncomfortable.

I think we enter a dangerous area when this happens between people. A place where we are in danger of not only taking advantage, but of turning ambivalent. Lacking compassion and understanding. Lacking concern. Lacking awareness.

And yet, it could also be from this place that the greatest things can be done. The most 'good', if you will. Once the fear or uncertainty is bridged, unfathomable things can be done in cooperation, together, as one entity, one unity, one community.

And yet.

I haven't found the answer to balance this problem. Is it fear that lends itself to think comfortability is wrong? Or is it comfortability that lends itself to think that action or change is unnecessary? Which way does the pendulum swing? In a straight line or in a circle?

I'm uncertain.
So, at least I'm not comfortable.
But, that might come back to haunt me as well.
We'll see, I suppose.

If I walk in a straight line and I come back to myself, then I guess I'll know I've been traveling in a circle all along. And if I don't? Then I wasn't ever going to, anyway.

Kindness only goes so far

There is a problem in humanity. And it is the fact that we get tired of being kind and generous. Sick of giving. Fed up with having to have an open hand.

Think if you will. What are a few models? A friend who is "always asking for something". A neighbor who is "always looking for a hand out". A roommate who is "always trying to get something for free".

But, why do these things exist? Is it really that people are always trying to "take advantage" of kindness? Or better: does that phrase make any sense at all?

Isn't kindness and generosity meant to be taken for what it is? Aren't hand-outs meant to be given? Aren't we supposed to expect that when we are willing to freely give, someone else is willing to freely take? And shouldn't we be disappointed, let down, disheartened if no-one is?

Or, are we merely giving with the hope that no-one wants what we have to offer? Are we merely opening our hands but hoping that, at the end of the day, what was in them will still be there? Are we "giving" while simultaneously hoping we don't have to, instead getting something in the end?

I think the theory of giving without restraint is lost on us as a culture and society. We get tired out, worn down of having open doors. We want boundaries. We want limitations. We want to be able to say "no". We feel "taken advantage of". When, in reality, that is exactly what we should be hoping for if giving freely is our claim.

If kindness without question is our goal, then we should want someone who needs limitless kindness. If generosity is our goal, then we should hope for someone who takes without restraint or thought. And if openness is our goal, then we should be seeking out someone who is willing to enter into our lives without boundaries, limits, or guidelines.

Otherwise, are we really kind? Have we actually been generous? Have we even opened ourselves up?

If there is still a hesitation, still a wariness, still a wanting to pull away at any point, then the answer is still no.

Clearly, this is a problem for everyone though. Because who among us is capable of not feeling taken, had, tricked, or cheated? Who among us can't help but wonder if giving and giving and giving does any good? Who among us can't help but think - yeah, but I'm doing all the goddamn work here!

I know I am. I don't give freely. I don't open without boundary. I don't want to be generous without a thought. What if, in the end, I give it all away and then I don't have what I need? What if I get screwed in the end because no-one is willing to give to me? And aren't I just a beggar then? And since "beggars can't be choosers", won't I still be screwed?

It's difficult, and yet, I know if I were to let go - I would be freed from my ties to materialism and fear. But still, I cling to what I have because it feels safer that way. It feels like I have some amount of control. Some portion of this world that I can claim. It feels like I have a say. Like I have my own future, destiny, course of action held by the reigns and I determine where I go.

In reality, I don't.
Reality moves in whatever way it chooses, with or without me. Oftentimes, against me. And what can I do? What can we do? When the earth shakes and waves rise and fires spark and storms rage - there is nothing that any of our clinging has done. We are still just as easily felled, if not easier for our fear. For our towers to the sky that we think are our protection from the world. When in reality, they are concrete cubicles wherein we are alone, sectioned off, unreachable. Each of us separated from our hearts, from our ability to hold one another, from our ability to help one another, from our ability to save one another. From our ability to work together.

In the end, its absurd to try and hide from reality. To try and take control of anything. The only thing that has any real control is quality, and we cannot possess it. It may be a part of us, but we do not own it, can't delve it out in our own measurements. Quality goes where quality goes and the wind blows where the wind blows. And trying to contain it is chasing after air.

We will only fail and fall. And our holding on to what we thought we had will mean nothing. Personally, I think we should let it go. Have unbounded kindness and generosity and openness. Limitless understanding and compassion. One that allows all to be taken, because in the end, what we gave was never under our command, anyway. We are only temporary holders, temporary place-markers that have a sense of being able to instill more quality. But we are instilling shit and death.

We need to stop. We need to open our hands back up. And we need to play our part much better than this. Because as things stand now, the play we're creating is complete shit. And if you don't think so, just take a look around and tell me where the quality is.

Open Our Eyes

This latte art is bleeding.
This muffin is rotting.
These strings are breaking.
This dream is cracking.

Mined from a hole in the ground to make a tasty treat. Pulled from a tropic tree, peeled, dried and ground to make a tasty drink. The sweet white tossed away, the purple insides left to rot and dried to make a fancy centerpiece and endless junk to eat. Poison from the depths pulled up a straw to fuel my car. Rare and hard to get little shards of metal so I can watch a video on my flashy new device.

Fire bound up in a wire so we hope it won't burn us anymore.

Do we even know we're still being burned? Do we even know where all of this comes from? Do we know the origins of our wealth? Do we know how we get what we have?

An entire nation of poor bent over to do our labor, to build our easy costs, to make our minds go numb, to stretch our bellies out.

We tout local, organic, free-trade, green, sustainable, eco-friendly, small farms these days. But do we realise the impossibility of what we ask for? The unreasonable cost that we are incurring just so we can smile and pat ourselves on the back? Just so we can fill our addictions to the drugs we think are most attractive and convenient?

Mile after mile and stretch after stretch and place after place all across this planet, we corrupt. We tear to shreds. We take what we want to fill no other purpose than a selfish instant self-pleasure.

And yet, we could live so much better. If we worked, we would be well. If we looked, we would find. If we tried, we would have a richer way of life.
And yet, we carry on stumbling down the street - completely blind, thinking double at every turn we don't even realise that we make.

Can we do better?
I say we would be more fulfilled if we did.
We would find what we lost.
And we would want to be alive in the rain and in the wind and in the sunlight again. Our hands in the dirt and in the mud, building up for ourselves what our systems have taken away from us.

I want to ditch this technological, industrial revolution for a revolution of the human spirit. I want to ditch all these so-called benefits for all the hardships of having to build from the ground-up again. I want to ditch supermarkets for hunting, gathering, finding or cultivating for myself.

I want to ditch society for community.

Who's with me?

A dark consideration

I wonder. If we went far enough, would the light abandon us? If we stopped living long enough, would our souls betray us? Would nature turn its back and dispel us? Would we ever get to the point where we spit ourselves out of our mouths? Is it even possible?

I'm tired of the self-gratifying, self-pleasuring, self-fulfilling bile we are eating. I'm sick to my stomach, but I can't find anything else to eat.

Just more of this imitation, artificially flavored, cheap and easy to reproduce life. Just more manufactured, piece-meal things made as shittily as possible. And in the face of it, what can we really do? Born of the upper-crust, the priveledged, the rich. Do we even know how to be anything else?

The weight of what we have done and what we have become is crushing. Are we even still breathing underneath it? Are we even still alive under all that rubble? Or are we just completely suffocating. Drowning under the weight. Our bones all breaking. Our shape not holding.

You can't tell. Because we're oh so good at faking it now. At looking like we're together. At playing the part. At making it all look good. At making it seem like it makes us happy. At pretending like we aren't vomiting it back up. Like we aren't all dying of the cancer of what we've created.

I, for one, want some shit to go down. We need some kind of shit to go down. Something that will shake us up and show us how this life is full of shit. Or maybe, the shit isn't the point. Maybe what we need is a warning to tell us that we're on our way.

Maybe what we need is a new prophet. A new voice to call our for the spirit of Life. To cry the midnight that has engulfed us. A new mouth to carry a new message.

But what can these mouths even say? Warning, we've gone to shit and we aren't coming back? See here, we're breeding death? We're heading for a black hole. Let's turn around?

But, don't we already know it? Don't we already see it? Don't we already feel it?
So, who then, will turn?

Perhaps compassion is the key. To remember that in all of us is that same spark, and also that same tendency to fall into ourselves, into selfish complacency.

I am no saint. I have my own comforts that I will vie for mercilessly. My own hang-ups that I will back up. My own pleasures that I will claw at the face of this world for. The exact same tendency to go into spiritual hibernation - to only do the things that suit me.

But my eyes can be opened. And so can everyone's.

So long as we remain committed to openness and honest with one another, we've still got a chance. So long as we comitt to remind each other of compassion and peace, we can still do this. Turn this fucking world around - at least, our part of it. One tiny corner of it. One modicum. One little piece of it. And that might just be enough to get a trickle-down effect going or a goddamn revolution started.

Just maybe.