Revolutionary Misfit

Dare to be Inspirational

The Race Card

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The Race Card

You know, it’s funny how the use of “the race card” is decried as being foul-play by some…

as if racism no longer mattered, or even existed…

Oh noooo, racism shouldn’t even be considered a factor…

When a white cop on a police force that is 95% white shoots and kills an unarmed black teenager in a community that is 67% black…

When our nation’s first black President can’t do anything (repeat NOT ANY ONE SINGLE SOLITARY THING) to please or appease the Tea Party crowd, which happens to be 90% white…

When unemployment among black Americans almost always doubles that of white…

When black Americans account for about 40% of the total prison population in the U.S., despite being only 14% of the total population…

When racist comments from celebrities and business moguls bubble to the public surface, routinely…

When virulent racism can easily be detected simply by reviewing the millions of Facebook comments and Twitter posts about “our” President…

When more than a third of impoverished Americans are black, as opposed to about 13% who are white…

When churches throughout the U.S., especially in the south, are still predominantly divided along racial lines…

When communities throughout the U.S., especially in the south, are still predominantly divided along racial lines…

When in my own experience, friends and acquaintances who would never admit to harboring one iota of racism in public, will readily admit their secret desire to get that [expletive] out of the “white” house…

There’s a lot of talk out there about truth, usually in the form of opinion masquerading as such.

In my opinion, the facts speak for themselves and disclose the real truth…

That the race card is still in the deck and as long as it is, it will and should be legitimately played.

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From Belief to Ideology

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From Belief to Ideology

If you got nothing new to say, re-say something old. And, fortunately, there’s a lot out there that I’ve said that I can choose from.

Some of it embarrassing, but some of it, actually quite illuminating, in my not-so-humble opinion…

Here’s one on moving from belief to ideology.

I remember some self-help guru (I believe it was Tony Robbins) said that it really doesn’t matter if your beliefs are true or not, as long as they’re useful.

While that seems to be a slightly cynical statement, it does have a tinge of truth.

Where do our beliefs come from?

Well, they come from our experiences, traditions, parents, culture, etc.

If you grow up in a christian home, you’ll be inclined to adopt similar beliefs. Whereas if you grow up in, say, a muslim home, you’ll be more likely to adopt a quite different set.

If you grow up in communist China or Russia, you might not hold fast to the idea that western capitalism is the path to prosperity.

Does that make one belief right and the other wrong?

No, because the truth is that no matter what you “believe,” you cannot prove empirically that an opposing or different belief is wrong or untrue.

Believing is different than knowing. I know the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. I don’t “believe” it to be true.

Beliefs are based on a certain degree of faith. The stronger that faith, the stronger the belief.

They’re not all religious. You can have beliefs about many things…politics, business, personal development, and so on.

In the previous 173 posts (referring to the old CRG blog) I’ve provided a smattering of my own beliefs. I know that they probably seem to be uncentered and disorganized. Some liberal, others conservative. Some religious, others secular.

But you see one thing I don’t believe in is “labels.” I’m not going to try and organize my beliefs in such a way that folks would label me conservative or liberal, religious or secular, right or left-wing.

We tend to get far too concerned that our beliefs have to be consistent with a given ideology. That’s never a good thing.

Why?

Because it limits what you allow yourself to believe in.

Beliefs are the product of our search for truth.

There was a time when believing that the earth was anything but flat would get you labeled a heretic…maybe even executed.

Today, if you grow up in the bible-belt southern U.S.A., believing anything but the conservative or fundamentalist christian line may not get you executed, but it will get you exiled from membership in the club.

So we disallow ourselves from believing anything outside of the confines of the accepted ideology.

When beliefs get bolstered by community…that is, when what you believe is shared by all those you associate with…you run the risk of becoming someone who thinks he or she knows the truth…an ideologue.

And once you begin to think that your belief is absolute, empirical truth, it must mean that what everyone else believes is a lie (in short, heresy).

And that naturally leads to the idea that other “untrue” beliefs should be suppressed, quelled, or vanquished.

But I “know” that the human race’s search for truth is never served by suppression.

If it weren’t for the brave-hearted souls who dared to believe differently, in the face of the threat of condemnation or expulsion by the community of shared beliefs, then we would still think the world is flat.

In short, we would never know real truth.

Isn’t it curious how we tend to destroy ourselves over ideologies as opposed to scientifically knowable truth?

On Painting Masterpieces

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on painting masterpieces

This morning I reach way back into the CRG archives once again…

Bob Dylan once sang that…

Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody…when I paint my masterpiece.

I believe Dylan was being facetious with that line, maybe with the entire song.

And then I also remember Big Tony (Robbins) once proclaiming that…

The road to someday leads to the town called nowhere.

I tend to draw inspiration from eclectic sources, don’t I?

I think Tony’s right because in my experience that mythical “someday” just doesn’t exist at all.

Waiting for some “day” to arrive at your doorstep in all its glorious perfection is like “waiting for Godot.”

But, as in the play, Godot just never seems to show.

I have often said that someday I will, or someday I won’t anymore.

Aspirations built upon the shoddy foundations of forlorn hope and recalcitrant expectation.

But life never gets smooth enough, the rough edges never hewn enough, the fog never lifts to be clear enough, and life just…goes on…

and my masterpiece in waiting…

waits.

Hold on…here’s a novel idea…

Maybe joy can be found in the painting, whatever form my metaphorical brush might take on.

In splashing on the colors like Jackson Pollock on an acid trip.

Chaotic? At best.

But one can find joy in chaos, no?

I often like to describe the music of the Grateful Dead, my favorite band of bands, as “organized chaos.”

I guess a painting that would be a truthful representation of my life, all 53 years into it, would indeed be rather…chaotic.

A “Masterpiece?”

Now that’s really not for me to say and, in all truthfulness, I won’t be around to judge, will I?

The point of this post on painting masterpieces?

Try to enjoy the damn painting for god’s sake!

We Think We Know Until We Know

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we think we know, until we know

Here are 10 things I could’ve sworn I knew…

until reality up and bit me.

1. I could’ve sworn I was a perfect specimen of physical health, until one night when my heart took off like Mario Andretti in the Indy 500…

2. I could’ve sworn I was destined for fame and fortune until age 50 found me alone and destitute…

3. I could’ve sworn I’d found the love of my life until I was served with papers seeking a pension alimentaria (a Costa Rican “no-fault” alimony, to which any undeserving woman is entitled…just by leaving and filing)…

4. I could’ve sworn that my country was exceptionally exceptional until I discovered the truth about what went on in Latin America at its behest…

5. I could’ve sworn to my talent for the written word until I spent over 6 years writing with no one giving the slightest shit about anything I had to say…

6. I could’ve sworn that I was a good person whose karma would pay off, eventually, until life (or, better said, my choices) handed me a lemon that almost seems damn near impossible to squeeze (still trying to squeeze that sucker though!)…

7. I could’ve sworn family ties were iron-clad until I realized, as Bob Dylan once said (Grammy acceptance speech 1991), “you know it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father will abandon you and if that happens god will always believe in your own ability to mend your ways.”…

8. I could’ve sworn that my eternal (perhaps stupid) optimism would lead me to a brighter world, or experience of it, until events of late have all but convinced me that man is, for the most part, hell-bent towards self-destruction…

9. I could’ve sworn that my christian concept of god and salvation was the correct one, until it dawned upon me that it was actually only a select one, among many others…none of which could possibly be 100% true…

And after scraping all that “dogma” off my shoes, why in god’s name would I want to step in it again?

10. I could’ve sworn that life was about maximizing my income until one day I woke up to realize it was really about maximizing my impact…I hope for me, it’s not too late…

You know, it’s funny how we think we know until we know…that we were dead wrong.

The Singularity of Alan Watts

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The Singularity of Alan Watts

I just had my mind blown.

How?

By reading a book by the 60’s era Zen philosopher, Alan Watts. The book is entitled The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, published in 1966.

I only recently learned of Watts via Maria Popova’s blog, Brain Pickings. In fact, ever since I discovered it, I’ve learned a great deal from her blog…

I highly recommend it!

Why did Watts’ book blow my mind?

I’ll use an example from the book to illustrate…

The Singularity of Alan Watts

If I asked you what was pictured to the right, you would likely say a circle, correct?

But could it not just as well be a hole in a wall?

Could it not be both?

At the same time?

Because, you see according to Watts, what something is, including you and me, is not defined simply by what’s on the inside, but also by what is on the outside.

That is, the surface of my skin is also the edge of the space around it.

Western thought, influenced largely by Christianity, would lead us to believe that we are separate from everything else, including each other.

I am me and you are you and there is a concrete and delineable separation between us…called space, which is also a separate “thing.”

In fact, religion would go even further and say that God has separated us into a group he likes and another he doesn’t.

Watts would say that to fully describe a human, one must not only look to the actions of the man himself, but also to the environment in which those actions take place…and that environment is the entire universe.

That is, you cannot separate the inside from the outside, because both exist interdependent on the other…they are one and the same “thing.”

There is no inside without an outside and vice versa.

Pretty heady stuff, no?

But then I start asking myself, OK Mr. Watts, that might be so, but so what?

What relevance does it have for my present existence, since the entire set up has been devised along the lines of separateness, as delusional and illusional as that might be…

It’s the “world” we have to live in.

Well, Watt’s philosophy kinda dovetails with the whole mindset that I espouse here in The Revolutionary Misfit blog.

That the impetus for impact should stem from our sameness, not our separateness.

That is, not to just throw money at problems because we have compassion for those poor starving “others.”

When we help others, we are actually helping ourselves. Because, as Watts alludes, we’re all really the same thing…we all make up the universe, which makes up…us.

Neither can exist without the other.

When I read about all the division that reins in our world and spawns such venomous hatred that shows up in many of the FaceBook posts circulating through my news feed…

it’s both enlightening and hope inspiring to read the words of Alan Watts.

I want to be inspired with a good reason or motive for practicing impact mindfulness…for being mindful about anyone else’s problems other than my own.

At times, I will admit, I think, hey what’s the use, or what’s the point of it all?

The point is that what might be happening on the other side of the globe to a small child in a tiny African village does affect me…

because that happening is part of the universal flow of which I am a component.

It’s not a separate event that I can just ignore on my way to more western culture-driven ego inflation.

We’re all doing this activity called life together and I believe impact should be about helping ourselves collectively enjoy that mutually experienced process.

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The Real You…

The Joys of Being an NRSP (non-Religious Spiritual Person)

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non-Religious Spiritual Person

As the world is tearing apart at the seams over competing religious viewpoints, I thought I would express the joys of being a sideliner NRSP…

So, here are 10 joys of being a non-Religious Spiritual Person (in random order…because that’s how we NRSP’s like our order)…

1. Lack of Guilt – Over things that religious people love to make you feel guilty about. Now, granted, some of these “things” might actually be bad for me, but I for one don’t like being “guilted” into doing only what other people think is good for me.

2. Open Mindedness (domestic issues) – I get to choose for myself things like who I might vote for, and what political viewpoint I prefer to get behind…without being pressured into towing the theo-political line…under the threat of potential excommunication.

3. Open Mindedness (international issues) – I get to see the world as it really is…a great big place full of people who might look, think and worship differently, but really are made of the same flesh and blood and have the same basic needs and wants…when you get right down to it.

4. Peace and Calm – I don’t feel that sense of outrage about the world not marching in lockstep with my ideology, which convinces (and terrifies) me that things are only going to get worse and to store up “provisions” in my backyard nuclear-holocaust-proof underground bunker.

5. Optimism – And #4 brings me to this one, being an NRSP allows me to hold an optimistic view of the world and the direction it’s headed in…because I believe in the commonality of humanity rather than a version of it that divides us all into warring ideological groups sequestered behind invisible and politically-contrived borders.

6. Reality – I get to look to science to give me a rational explanation of matter, rather than some fantastical fairy-tale story…oh, and I don’t even have to strain credulity to reconcile the two.

7. Love – I can love everyone, even those that don’t believe what I do…because I really believe very little at all and adhere to no dogma whatsoever. So, hatred doesn’t enter into the thought-stream, especially not that virulent strain known as “religious hatred.”

8. Being Wrong – I can be wrong and be perfectly happy about it…in other words, it won’t upset my entire world view because I maintain one that is open to, well, any truth that I happen to stumble upon.

9. Savings – I get to save all that money that my “pastor” would otherwise shame me into turning over to him. Or, I can use it to benefit people and planet as I choose, not as “the church” chooses.

10. Impact – I get to live my life shed of the Impact Blinder of religion that otherwise would influence my impact to be much narrower than it really ought to be. And, as you know, for me, that’s what life’s really all about!

This is not a call to indoctrination, only a suggestion.

NRSP’s as a rule do not proselytize!

Now, I know religious people will call me names…like atheist, hypocrite, agnostic, liberal, progressive, etc…

And that’s OK, I’m open to it!

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