We Are Traumatized Animals

We live in a system. That's not a problem. What is though is it's created by and for those who have access to the meetings - in person and in funding. 

Let's forget the hierarchy for a minute. What do they work for? The good of those present and those who have joined the group.

A young man said to me when I asked him what values do his friends have in terms of social and political engagement? He said you don't talk politics, religion or money - everyone knows that!

He is a successful young man. Has a family, friends, a good job, a beautiful successful wife and two enthusiastic children.

They value their friends and family. They value comfort, good food and good health. They are not impressed with greed or selfishness. But I was a little alarmed when he said "you don't talk politics" with your friends. 

I understand why. I have been dropped from dinner parties because I defend social justice and have a tendency to prioritize social duty over power. My friends and family must be tired of hearing my opinion.

Where to draw the line? Take an interest in what other people think, delve further into what and why without being too nosy. Most of all listen and let them know you are interested in what they think. Let them know they are more valuable than experts and media believe.

The problem is we have all been traumatized by capitalism and before that we were traumatized by feudalism and the class we were born into.

Racism and gender are more reasons we stumble over reality which is different for each person. We try so hard to do the right thing, think the right way, yet there is so much we don't know.

If I share knowledge of a documentary I watched last night I might be revealing I know something my friends don't yet. How many of us ask our peers what they have learned, what they think? We become a type to others. So we join clubs where we meet others of like-mind. I hate being uninformed yet my life revolves around abilities and to-do lists.

It's okay to not know everything - we can keep learning, but one thing I keep in mind is everyone carries a burden of some kind. Everyone has suffered. 

Our world is run by common values and tricksters. Lovingkindness is needed first and foremost even for those who are cruel leaders. But we must stop paying lip service to wealth and power. Life is more powerful than money. If you think that's ridiculous ask yourself what you would choose - a million bucks or your family. 

What Exactly is Well Behaved in a world that feeds profit into offshore banks?

 

When people who defend human principles such as kindness and cooperation and the desire to build society for people are ridiculed and dismissed, how about we look at what is happening?

What is feared so much? To whom is hate directed? Is it a principle of survival and cooperation, is it kindness, or is money and power the only thing that counts among those redeemed as the leadership class? The highly educated get annoyed when I ask such a question. There are no solutions! 

Those presented in the media as the ones who survived and are winning, have ideas on how to survive based on their own personal success but they are busy surviving themselves. It's a glossy magazine of a theory, like the Royal Family, the heroes, the ones with perfect bodies and good education.

But most people are left to overcome hunger, depression or homelessness. Questions about why we suffer and why we continue to choose small quick fixes instead of a complete overhaul is mostly, I suspect, we don't have the power to fix everything.

Also I don't prescribe getting really upset, or worse, start out to save the world based on one person or party's observations. But the fact remains that the majority of souls on this planet have been, and continue to be exploited.

I would go further and say those who are expected to fix things are quite happy to keep things as they are because they benefit from the system. They are not evil they simply have been educated to win at all costs. The tragedy is we punish them with threats.

All living creatures are afraid of something, and rather than try and comfort them, there are those who seek to climb onto their shoulders.

Try saying at a business meeting or political gathering, our duty is to care for those who suffer so they don't choose to harm others. Sure, Buddha, Thich Nhat Han, your local priest and your children's teachers would say yes to kindness. But we are a long way off from a society that can guarantee our safety.

The recently deceased beautiful and talented musician, Sinnead O'Connor suffered from mental illness she claims from a mother, and a church who tortured those trusted to their care. We know about this suffering because of what happened to our First Nations children taken from their tribes and homes in order to "beat" the Indian out of them.

What is it that a concerned person should do besides sending money to social/political projects to save the world - a world not just crawling with different species, but human beings and their histories and biases.

Save the world and donate a hundred bucks to this cause, and that project.

These words are too big for little people like me. Sure I can send money, read the news, sign petitions and vote, but there is the meat of reason missing in this.

We live in a capitalist system that is good for many reasons but mostly unconcerned about the effect of competition and judgement towards those who suffer, such as the hungry, homeless, battered or alienated.

The media leads in stories (news) about violence and extreme wealth. Trotting out a list of where the reader may benefit from the suffering of others although it would not be told that way. Blindly we think women who work in the sex trade are happy.

Cruelty is not just a freedom to choose, but a link to all the tensions and fears of a system that creates wealth for a few, survival of a majority, and misery for others.

There is a sneering from the "winners" when they speak of their success and young males are taught to mistrust their feelings in order to become men. Without this influencers would not be able to organize wars and media lies so that weapons industries thrive.

The corporation wants staff who can play the game. Strategize problems so the corporation wins. Problem with strong moral and principled people? Fire them before they influence other staff, and if its against the principles written in their constitution then make their position miserable so they will resign. And don't waste good victims. Once victimized they are good examples of the power wielded over them. They are failures.

Failures, cripples and idiots are manufactured in society so the rulers can feel more powerful. Sports, board games and beauty contests are ways of exploiting humanity. Isolated units competing for the most of what each wants, alienates us from family.

My Favourite Dream For The Future

 

What I hope for, even though I know hope is not enough, is people will come to know the power of love. Then parents will no longer believe performance is everything. To encourage their children to get top marks to prove their worth does not take to account their innate value. 

Yes we want our children to learn but getting top marks or winning the most goals or being the most popular does not translate to success in life. It just makes parents proud until the child makes his or her next mistake.

Some schools reports are no longer using the A to D means of describing how well their students are doing. This pulls us into a two dimensional world of judgment. The expectation that an A+ student shall be a success and a B- student will not.

I believe teachers, principles and school super-intendants, have realized we are not two-dimensional  animals. Understanding life, science, arts and humanity is more complex than school reports or marks.

Sceptical about what's on the outside and more interested on the inside,  I loved figuring out how others become happy? Growing up I was obsessed with whether I was liked, likeable or basically good. This narcissistic obsession was not good for me or anyone who had to deal with me. 

Obsession with perfect beings and being perfect meant I did not help others even though I wanted to.

Marriage and children gave me direction but still I was imperfect. Who cares?

Competing for top marks, top popularity and being a success - came from a general obsession with performance. Anxiety for parents to nurture children to be perfect. Anxiety for teachers, headmasters and superintendents to create perfect experiences for children.

Children become adults who work for top positions, seek gratitude from those in their care and respect from all who know them. Adults who have this need for positive feedback.  I mean how do you know how your efforts are received without  a dialogue, a report, or acknowledgement. 

Friends, acquaintances will ask "how are you?" But how do you feel does not get acknowledged even though it all begins with how you feel.

I tried to point out the feeling part to my children and others. Growing up I felt a lot of anxiety of not being good enough. Should try harder. Should not hurt anyone. Now I listen to the world news and it hurts in my gut to hear of famous ambitious humans who blow up other nations, countries, in order to win.

Hitler did not win in the end. After all the cruelty and destruction he was viewed as mad. I was horrified that even in the country I was born in, there were people who supported Nazis. The people I met were kind and loving. Doctors and teachers, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, who had my best interests at heart.

This is not a Pollyanna thing. Now I am aware of terrible cruelties towards First Nations, people of colour, LGBTQ people, children in abusive homes, warring nations and women. Cruelty and injustice is the main course of media reports besides sport.

What I hope is we stop slapping marks on vulnerable foreheads,  so that all have a chance to grow up with self worth before they seek to rule the world by killing others, blowing up other nations to prove they are somebody. So that personal wealth is not an accumulation of thing but character of compassion and sensitivity. So that sensitive intelligence is not dismissed as naive and we can focus on healing this planet from greed, hate, fear and suspicion.

Meaning of Life

 

What is the meaning of life? Ultimately. What is it that threatens? Is it climate change, the oil industry, capitalism, humanity?

We know we need to change and yet those in positions of power and responsibility are still making rules that mostly benefit them as well as risk their future.

Take war for example. Beliefs change according to how it benefits those who we look to for leadership. Lawyers, politicians, police, medicine, all have duties to perform, yet currently we are in a time that threatens the knowledge of leaders.

What we are trained to believe doesn't cover planetary collapse which appears to make us humans redundant. If all the training and education we have received does not offer a way through, we look for a way out.

What is a way out here? Certainly we won't find support for the majority of our peers. We humans have created a system that we managed to update as we go along. But we have no sure answers. Mainly because we created systems that gave us opportunities to abuse.

When we learned agriculture we looked for leaders to advise. So a hierarchy was established which remains today as a threat. Children are trained to admire and follow the rulers. Adults are trained to keep their opinions to themselves if they believe those in charge are not capable of saving us.

Beliefs became entrenched in law, habits and orthodoxies. Prisons built to put away those we thought were dangerous. (I know this is too easy to be true but most of us are not scientists or trained philosophers and this is not meant to be an academic submission - I write this because I want to think about it).

Various centuries have demanded various beliefs and these beliefs can either save or harm us. Take for example the witch hunts. They were charged with creating spells, power over us. The result was not just thousands of women who were murdered but the habit of making sure women did not have any power. Women became the possessions of men, husbands, sons, kings but rarely queens. It was a tiring campaign but the result was half the population had no voice. And yet there was always fear. The more a group of people are silenced the more they become dangerous in our imaginations. 

Even today the biggest threat to authoritarian societies are those we fear not just those who are not like us. This is huge in the realm of social imagination. 

We suffer no matter what. Mostly because our bodies are vulnerable to bleed and break, and even if we live for 80 years, our brain has a vague memory of what we are afraid of. I am not talking of trauma here because there are others trained in that field who are best at explaining that. Yes we have to deal with trauma but I am not the one to write about it.

Our own well being is not the greatest concern. We can see how those we love are also at risk. Young helpless babies, children, aged parents and all kin. With the daily news we hear of strangers with knives and guns. We learn of sociopaths in positions of great power. We are aware that the things we need most can be taken away, we can be starving, poor and homeless. 

The more power we have the bigger our losses. The greater our sensitivity the greater our fears. The more intelligence we posses the larger the threats dance in our minds, keeping us awake, causing emotional sickness and mental illness. It's exhausting. Where and when will it all end?

There are no solutions. There are many theories and arguments but no pills or insurance policies that offer 100% protection. We stand a better chance when we don't cause suffering which magnifies every fear and threat.

Even those who invest in guns and bombs in the hope it will keep their circle safe from inquiring minds - are investing in chaos. Theories of control are the fantasies we have relied on to keep going. Religion which we look to for wisdom makes all who are not adhering to that particular faith a danger if we cannot see the strength of having different beliefs, the comfort of inquiry and the self discipline to not engage in judgements based on our own ignorance.

Is the meaning of life really a balance where we learn as much as we can, comfort as many as we can, love all we can, feed and shelter all we can, for as long as we can?

Colouring White Supremacy

 

Colouring White Supremacy

Looking back on errors of judgment

I wince and squirm

—no-one else is to blame

for this wormlike visit

yes it was passed down to me

by people in places of authority

some who now make me wince

as I watch scenes of cruelty

and torture to the innocent

natural animals shriveling

back into shadows—they

do not make me feel bad

they make me examine

what I’d rather not look at

yet understand that I must

if I want to be fully human

before I die.

Guilt comes from thinking

after the swaggerbrag.

I don’t want you to feel guilty

I want us all to begin again

to breathe deeply

to say sorry to those I hurt

to point out injustice

when I see it

without fear of being punished

by the haters and honkers

planning a future where they

will win no matter what.

But white on white can’t be seen.

And to win something I didn’t deserve

is to lose dignity.

Sisyphus Are You There?

 "No Republican or Democratic presidential candidate has any intention of halting corporate pillage. They will not curb the fossil fuel industry or combat ecocide. They will not rebuild our decayed infrastructure and failing educational system. They will not reform our predatory for-profit health care system or restore our right to privacy by halting wholesale government surveillance. They will not institute public financing of elections to curb the legalized bribery that defines elective office. They will not raise the minimum wage. They will not end our permanent wars. " Chris Hedges https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/cornel-west-and-the-campaign-to-end?

The world’s biggest problem? Powerful psychopaths. | Brian Klaas