Revolutionary Misfit

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The Flip Side of Freedom

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The Flip Side of Freedom

My last post included a weird line that could’ve left some out there scratching their heads and mumbling to themselves…

WTF?

But, you see, the very fact that we talk to ourselves, without considering ourselves nuts, while considering everyone else who does the same, completely, sort of gets at my point…

That we constantly hallucinate that there is an immortal little man or woman, as the case may be, inside our heads, at the driving wheel of our lives…

Most of our thoughts give support to that nutty notion.

OK, the line I’m referencing read…

Because a place inhabited with folks without those glorious twinkles, is a place too full of loathing, and not nearly enough losing.

Allow me to elaborate…

You see when we’re full of self, or ego, we tend to do either one of two things…

We hate ourselves for not being as good as those other competing selves,

Or, we hate those other selves for not being as good as us.

Okay, “hate” might be too harsh a word. Is loathe better? How about dislike, distrust, or maybe, disassociate…??

All one needs to do is to walk around downtown Portland, especially the riverfront section on a Saturday or Sunday, and you’ll see a whole lot of folks who’ve lost it.

Not in the sense of “their minds”…although, for more than a few, that’s certainly debatable…

But in the sense of giving up, or losing the need to play the game I’ll call the “competition of selves.”

They’ve made the conscious choice to free themselves from participation in that full-contact and very bloody sport. Which, by the way, is a choice we’re all liberated to make.

But then there is the flip side of freedom. And I can see that more than a few are losing their freedom to freedom.

Once one steps away from the competition of selves, you immediately become conscious of an obligation. That is, the obligation to use the fact of your consciousness to enhance life…conscious life.

We don’t really sacrifice ourselves for material lacking in consciousness.

Do we?

OK, yes we have tree huggers, and those who want to save our oceans, not so much for the inanimate material of those unconscious things that take up space in our universe,…

but because they play a vital role in supporting and enhancing the life of conscious beings.

Without trees, minerals, the air and ocean, we, and other conscious beings, cannot exist.

But it’s hard to find the time, or feel the need, for impact when you’re fully engaged in the competition of selves.

The freedom endowed by no longer competing can be abused, or not impact-fully used. And I sense that’s occurring in Portland to some degree.

Folks needlessly shackling themselves once again…giving away their freedom to drugs and addictions that render them of little use to the good of the common consciousness.

In other words, it’s hard to live a life of impact when your completely wasted most of the time.

So, while I am becoming enamored with Portland and its freedom loving inhabitants…

My perception of a prevalent abuse of that freedom is something to be concerned about.

But, hey, I’ve only been here a couple of days.

And it definitely seems like a super cool place to hang one’s hat for a while.

Higher Levels of Confusion

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cuckoo - not in my nest!

I apologize for the paucity in prolificacy as of late.

I am currently in the U.S., engaged in the unimaginable…

investigating the potential for repatriation.

Sunday I celebrated, with extended family, some of whom I hadn’t seen in well over a decade, the 100th birthday of my dear Grandma Essie.

Someone remarked during the festivities that Grandma was borne the same year Mother’s Day was declared a national holiday…

grandma Essie's 100th...

Grandma Essie wittily retorted, as has been her style over the last 10 decades, that she’d taken full advantage of President Wilson’s decree.

Back to today’s post theme, I remember Anthony Robbins once telling seminar participants that the more confused they felt, the closer to a breakthrough they were.

Well, I’m currently reading The God Delusion by evolutionary biologist and unabashed atheist, Richard Dawkins. The book, while fascinating, is most definitely leading me to higher levels of confusion.

I was already relatively relaxed with the idea that christianity holds no more truth in it than any of the other religions that man has conceived, contrived and contorted over the ages.

Just consider for a moment the question of whether life exists on other planets.

Science estimates that there are probably a billion planets located in so-called goldilocks zones, where it’s not too hot, nor cold, but just right to support life.

That’s only about 1% of all the planets they estimate that the entire universe contains.

Now, could any of those planets actually support biological life forms?

Well, I guess the fact that we’re currently riding on exactly that type of a planet indicates a resounding YES!

In other words, there’s an extremely high probability that life does in fact exist out there, since we do in fact exist…right here.

We may never know for sure simply due to the unimaginable distances that lie between us and them.

On the other hand, is there any probability whatsoever that “they” are reading from the same religiously inspired books in the futile attempt to explain the perplexities of their existence…

not a chance in heaven, or hell.

So, I’ve pretty much had it with the idea that this book, or that book, this dogma, or that dogma, holds any degree of truth about the meaning of our existence.

That notion just doesn’t cut the mustard with me anymore.

Which is a slightly difficult thing for me to write in light of the fact that the same extended family I introduced above will unanimously declare me nuts for the thoughts I just expressed!

Nevertheless, one thing is for sure, and I believe Dawkins himself would readily agree…

There’s this lingering mystery behind it all. As much as science has advanced, and continues to do so, it still can’t explain…

the unexplainable.

Now, Dawkins would say that just because that’s the case, doesn’t mean we automatically resort to the intellectual sloth of conjuring up some Intelligent Designer to fill in the gaps.

After all, who, or what, designed the designer?

But as much sense as Dawkins makes, and he makes a lot, there still lingers in my far inferior mind this notion that there must be a purpose behind it all.

And that maybe this amorphous sense of purpose has some connection in those gaps.

That the purpose for my existence lies somewhere in there.

In this blog I take the bold leap of suggesting A purpose.

Now, do I know it to be THE purpose?

No, I would never presume such knowledge.

The most confusing chapter in Dawkin’s book, so far, has been the one that deals with this very question of purpose. The one in which he refutes the idea (repeatedly suggested in this blog) that the human capacity for good emanates from that same Intelligent Designer that Dawkins rather effectively poopoos.

Dawkins alternatively suggests that our tendency to engage in altruistic acts, or good, is built into our genes (and/or memes) via natural selection…

the engine that drives evolution.

Now, such a built-in altruism would have to be by nature focused intently on self or species propagation. But much of the altruism we actually witness in our world is certainly less focused and more broad based.

Why is that?

Well, Dawkins says that it’s just a case of misfiring of the survival urge.

For example, a mother bird has the natural urge to feed the chirping mouths that share her nest. But if a cuckoo appears (a brood parasite that sometimes shows up in the nest of other species) she will work just as hard to feed that one as well…

a misfiring of her altruistic urge.

So, Mr. Dawkins, am I to be led to believe that Ghandi, MLK, Mother Teresa, Mandela, and others of their ilk were simply engaged in acts of altruistic misfiring when they sacrificed their own lives for the lives of others?

That they did so purely by means of an evolutionary accident?

I find it easier to believe that they were led to do so by that mysterious sense of purpose that perplexes me and to which this blog is directly addressed…

The idea that life is so beautiful and so grand, and yes I agree that it has been made so by the “miracle” of natural selection, that we share a common purpose of trying to sustain it in that state.

Not just for ourselves to enjoy, but for future generations to have that same privilege.

We humans are impact-full creatures. We tend to leave a larger footprint than any of the other complex life forms that have evolved along with us on our planetary ship.

Maybe that’s why it’s most important for us to be impact mindful.

That idea admittedly offers little solution to the as of yet unsolved mysteries of material existence…

But it does lead me to a more inspired purpose for my being than the notion that any positive impact I might be able to make is simply the result of…

evolutionary misfiring.

Sustainability is a Spiritual Concept

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climate change march photo

I believe the essence of spirituality is the search for truth, about ourselves and our world.

Lately I’ve been interested in the atheistic viewpoint, reading the likes of Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krause.

I’m not an atheist. But I don’t believe there’s anything inherently wrong with atheism. It’s just another way of trying to figure things out.

In other words, atheists are just as spiritual as the rest of us seekers.

On the other hand, religious people, or those who have accepted the dogma of a particular religion as representing undeniable truth, are unspiritual.

That’s because in my mind, as soon as you stop searching, you lose spirituality.

On Sunday of this week, people around the world, with some 400,000 in New York city alone, marched in support of action to prevent the catastrophes threatened by global warming and resulting climate change.

There is overwhelming science behind the idea that the burning of fossil fuels is the culprit behind the phenomenon of global warming. And climate change is something we are actually experiencing now at an accelerated rate.

Yet, there are many who scoff at those who would take action to sustain our planet. In the U.S., the loudest of the scoffers is the Fox News Channel.

I watched a video this morning of the Fox News Five deriding the participants of the march in New York with their typical terminology, calling the marchers hypocrites, hippies and communists.

What exactly is the underlying motive behind the cynical attitude of Fox News towards people who have a passion for sustainability?

Because in my mind sustainability and spirituality go hand in hand.

I believe it’s because Fox News has positioned itself as the guardian of the status quo. And many are saying, now more loudly than ever, that in order for us to combat global warming, the status quo must change.

Change to what?

Something better. Something more sustainable.

And that scares the hell out of a lot of people, especially the ones that regularly tune into Fox. And of course, that’s what keeps the Fox News ratings high and Rupert Murdoch, one very happy billionaire.

The only reason to be afraid of change is if you are convinced that the status quo represents the truth, or the way things are supposed to be. And in America many believe that’s exactly the case.

Our capitalistic system is sacred to many. It’s as if they believe it to be god-ordained. But unfortunately it’s the engine behind the activity that’s overheating our planet.

Being convinced that something is true doesn’t necessarily make it so, unless, of course, your conviction is backed by scientific fact.

Moreover, the mode of thinking being perpetuated by Fox News, that the status quo is somehow sacred, is what really threatens us all.

And, despite the fact that most of the Fox viewers would probably identify themselves as christian, this Fox News motivated mode of thinking is inherently unspiritual.

I wrote the following piece many years ago on the connection that I see between sustainability and spirituality.

I believe it’s now more relevant than ever, so I decided to re-post it this morning. Because in my opinion those so-called hypocrites, hippies and communists who marched on Sunday are actually the most spiritual among us. They are the ones searching for truth. And they are the ones who can help save us, despite the contrary efforts of Fox News.

…

My last post addressed my personal definition of what it means to act sustainable. However, what is the ultimate aim of sustainable action? I believe only in knowing that can one truly bend the bow, release that arrow of ardent action, and hit the intended target.

It seems we’ve been far too focused for a very long time on maintaining inanimate objects, or stuff, than we’ve been on sustaining life.

If you’re a spiritual person with a belief that life is beautiful, regardless of your conception of how it might have come to be in the first place, you probably also hold fast to a conviction that we should try to sustain life in its healthy and beautiful state.

But human interaction and impact, with its priority on the inanimate stuff that gives us that false sense of comfort, has tended to diminish that healthy state.

Sustainability thus becomes our attempt at managing our interactions and impacts in a way that promotes the health of living things…

a healthy environment with healthy ecosystems, our own healthy bodies, even healthy relationships.

I guess we could call this facilitating ecological health, or endurance.

Of course, if you’re not at all spiritual and would rather subscribe to a “survival of the fittest” philosophy of life, then you probably don’t feel much of a need to act sustainable.

That’s the status quo way of thinking…that seeks to sustain not the health of living things, but the pursuit of selfish interests, with continued priority on the inanimate stuff that satisfies our lust for material comfort.

Sustainability, on the other hand, is a spiritual recognition that life is connected and that every part has a role to play in sustaining the whole.

It’s not sustainable to just sit back and expect for living things to sustain themselves and if they fall short, well it was just meant to be.

That all that really matters is my own personal comfort and the fact that people are starving, animals are becoming extinct, rain forests are disappearing, and the planet is overheating, just doesn’t enter into my picture.

Because the reality of connection is that, oh yes it will, eventually!

Sustainability is a spiritual concept that’s concerned that our interactions and impacts facilitate the health and endurance of the life that surrounds us, and of which we’re an integral part.

And I truly believe that in so doing the spiritual health of the human race can also be dramatically improved.

The Modern Rimbaud

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On Becoming Modern

Il faut être absolument moderne (One must be absolutely modern).

Arthur Rimbaud, from Adieu (Farewell), A Season in Hell

I am intrigued by Rimbaud’s admonition.

He, the wild poet seer, who abandoned the verse at the ripe old age of 20, to become…

“modern?”

I guess what he’s really saying is that after all the existentialist poetic poppycock, one must get down to the brass tacks of becoming…

“industrious.”

Which is exactly what Rimbaud did, until he died of cancer at age 37.

After writing the above line in his parting Farewell, he never wrote another verse…

but he did make some money…

a feat he never seemed to get around to accomplishing beforehand.

I seem to have lived my life in the opposite trajectory…

passing through the industrial stage to come out the other side, some sort of existential idealist.

Even though that hasn’t aided me in the least economically, I’m thankful that my life is unfolding (so far) in this absurd reverse chronological order.

For, in my opinion, to become a modern man-sized industrialist is to lose one’s general lust for a poetic and artful life…

Our quest for physical comfort supersedes and eclipses any hint of idealism that might have once been a motivational flame to our backsides.

In fact, the world is dominated by men (and women, albeit, perhaps to a lesser extent) who have modernized.

These are practical and hard-nosed types who quickly abandon the ideal for the real.

For that real world that we actually live in…that we face head-on day in and day out in the epic battle to simply exceed survival.

In such a quest, how can anyone be anything but self-interested…

when there are saber-toothed tigers roaming the asphalt jungles of our daily treading?

Men who have become modern have no time nor need for trivial ideals that spur actions undertaken for the collective good.

What is that, they ask, some sort of bleeding heart notion that there’s a purpose for my life grander than me?

Rubbish!

The capitalistic machinery of our society demands modernity. It demands industrial square cogs that fit into square holes…

not amorphous shapes that serve only to muck up the works.

That we serve our individual identities best when we refrain from activities that don’t blend well with the rest…

don’t stand out…don’t color outside the lines…

and for god’s sake, don’t spend your precious and limited industrious time thinking idealistic thoughts of how you might be here to enhance the life experience of another.

Hmm…interesting…

I believe I prefer the pre-modern Rimbaud.

The one whose skin was corroded by dirt and disease, hair and armpits crawling with worms, with still larger ones crawling inside his heart.

The seer who brought a vision of the world to us with combinations of words never heard before.

The idealist who shunned bourgeois industrial modernity for a bohemian rhapsodic experience of life.

If you think about the life of this young and remarkable poet, he is most remembered by his surprisingly short pre-modern existence…

That’s when and where he made his impact.

Perhaps the same could hold true for you and me.

image credit: Philippe Gillotte via Compfight cc

Defying Gravity

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defying gravity

Why is gravity necessary?

Why does all matter have to be under the glaring rule of this brutal taskmaster?

Could gravity be the impetus that ignites the cycle of life?

Up, or out, we go, until that certain point, where gravity overtakes us and back down we fall, until we’re pushing up again…daisies, that is.

Gravity can be a real “fun thief.”

Perhaps if I were the one to have authored the masterpiece that’s our universe, I might have left gravity off the canvas.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Things would be so much easier.

We would never have to fear looking down.

Yet, thankfully to us all, I didn’t have that privilege, so I guess we’ll just have to be satisfied living under the rules of the one that did…

He, she or it thought gravity was a good idea, so who am I to argue?

I guess when you step back and look at the big picture, it’s a necessary component of a matter-full life.

Defying gravity becomes our life-ly chore.

Because of gravity we have to remind ourselves, while ascending to higher levels of human experience, not to look down.

If you do, you might just find yourself hurling wildly and uncontrollably back to the place from whence you began…and the impact can be devastating!

We vow not to allow gravity to detain or derail us.

We strain and strive for that illusive summit, even if it’s only a foggy illusion on the present rocky crag of our mediocre life.

Watch out because from up there things fall!

Is there someone or thing up there that doesn’t want me to reach my goal?

Is this all a big joke to the one hurling rocks down upon my dreary head?

Or are they reminders that I need to be cautious as I climb?

And isn’t it generally true that the more difficult the climb, the sweeter the finish?

Yet the end looks so much like the beginning…

So goes the cycle of life…

Forever ready to greet the next climber.

image credit: noomrise via Compfight cc

The Impact Mindfulness Worldview

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peole planet universe

When you first hear or read the phrase impact mindfulness, what comes to mind?

Probably some sort of save the world kinda of a thing, no?

And it is that, but much more.

In this post I want to explain in more detail what the impact mindfulness worldview really means.

You see, the normal way of thinking about personal impact is to put the cart before the horse…

That the best way for me to have an impact on the world is to first focus in a self-interested way on my economic success…and from that firmly established and comfortable platform, I can have my greater impact.

Sounds perfectly legitimate…doesn’t it?

Here’s the problem with it.

If you’re Donald Trump and you make sure that a certain percentage of your success is funnelled towards some type of image-driven impact, a certain very small percentage…

It doesn’t detract from the fact that the other 90+% of your daily energy and focus is purely self-interested, group interested, consumption oriented and certainly not People and Planet interested.

The impact mindfulness worldview suggests that a larger percentage of your interest be impact focused. In fact, all of it…

Yea, you heard that right, 100%!

It must permeate every aspect of your life.

It must become who you are and what you’re about.

Because only when enough people do that will we begin to solve the problems we have in this world…

Problems that have been exponentially growing to uncontrollable proportions…

right before our very eyes in just the last generation.

Problems like religious fanatics that unleash genocidal rage on unbelievers, global warming that’s already wreaking havoc on the planet’s weather systems, a growing income gap that threatens social unrest around the globe, developed nations that are literally consuming the world out of existence, etc., etc…

We have a killer virus on the loose in Africa and it seems the worldwide response is to seal borders and leave those inside them to their fate…rather than find a real (but non-marketable) solution.

To solve these problems impact can’t be sequestered in that small slice of our lives we label as charitable.

It must pervade every waking moment of your conscious existence.

That’s the “mindset” of impact mindfulness.

It’s not simply donating time or money to this or that worthy cause…even though doing so is a very good and impact worthy activity.

It’s adopting a mindset that sees the world and our place in it in terms of the three foundational pillars of Impact Mindfulness…

Prioritizing Impact Over Interest – that is, making sure our daily choices or activities, especially those consumptive and economically focused ones, are impact mindful…

Embracing the Concept of The Big US – that is, seeing the entire world and its inhabitants as fellow crew members on a planetary ship…the only ship we have…so that it becomes of utmost priority that we take care of it and each other…

Removing Impact Blinders – that is, being mindful of status quo ways of thinking that serve to trap us into doing “it” (life) in the same old destructive ways…you might even call that “wilful blindness.”

The world, our world, needs people who are thinking and acting according to the impact mindfulness worldview.

These are the people that can save us…

and they are YOU and ME.

Please join us at Revolutionary Misfit and be a part of the change!

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