Recalibrating the System

System is the word I use to describe that collection of values and habits that form our society. We could call it - the world, truth, reality, democracy or capitalism - but whatever we call it we must engage with it. 

It isn’t always fair. The system seems to be indifferent towards our needs and wishes but we are not free of it until we die. Anger, love, hate, indifference, are some of the emotions we feel but we learn to adjust our responses for the least pain possible. 

BUT NOW OUR WORLD IS IN CRISIS. IT'S NOT ENOUGH TO JUST BE REFLECTIVE OR REACTIVE - WE NEED BOTH. 

Sometimes we will not submit and we find ways to change the system by talking, listening and planning to recalibrate. This is the politics that rarely gets covered publicly, although there are voices quick to claim failure or success at the end of all our work.

This post reflects on some of the initial stages of making changes. 

1. Examine Anger

Anger is a natural response to feeling threatened. Injustice, racism, phobia toward any gender or sexual orientation, religious intolerance, war, crime, all make me feel threatened. The retreat from civility to targeting (blaming) means I am not protected by principles of law or compassion. Any cruelty towards living entities and nature, means our system is moving towards brutality and away from civil society. Any fundamentalism or ideological authority means we are all at risk of being pushed through a mincing machine to produce a brand.

What makes you angry, what caused the source of your anger? To examine this question is to own your anger.

2. Choosing Hate is Not a Way Out

When does anger turn to hate? What thoughts lead us to find blame and to invest in violent “solutions”? What feelings enable us to feel sympathy for those who have chosen hate?

I have felt hate towards others when I fear, but hate for me has never led to a resolution. Hate makes me feel powerless, unable to move forward. It just makes me feel bitter and cynical.

If hell, as the saying goes, is other people, if all the problems I face are the fault of others, the biggest problem is that I have no agency. It's all the doing of the other who is entirely separate from me.  Hate doesn’t have a way out, an exit.

What hate does achieve is centralized power for those who seek to gain by violence. Hate enables the war strategist to blame the people for the conflict.

3. Invite People into the Conversation

Recalibrating the system is not about what any one person thinks the problems are. Rather it’s a conversation where friends and neighbours have a space to express their thoughts and to hear what others have to say. Some rules are necessary for participants to feel safe: (a) we agree not to share what is said in the circle outside the circle; (b) allow everyone the opportunity to speak, (c) be clear in establishing all participants are equal and valid members - there are no experts, (d) no personal insults or attacks, (e) don’t define others by their opinions, i.e. sexist, racist, bigot, snob. 

4. Plan 30 Years Ahead.

It took centuries to be where we are today. Each decade came out of the decade before. It took the current system thirty years to move from a general acceptance of social justice as a basic level of protection, to the market driven neoliberal focus that says the arbiter of all things is dependant upon “jobs and the economy”. 

Self interest is in our human nature. What are we willing to give up for our own interest? If we see a continuum where at one end there is security and peace, and at the other, we are free to do whatever we please as long as we keep a gun in the night table, we need to ask ourselves where we sit on that bench and where we would like to sit. 

To draw that bench and ask people to label the different stations from left to right can elicit a conversation about where their preferred place would be, and how can we move towards that?

5. How Will Anger Lead Us to Truth and Beauty?

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede

 Of marble men and maidens overwrought,

 With forest branches and the trodden weed;

 Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought

 As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

  When old age shall this generation waste,

 Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

 Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

 ( Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats.)

How have we personally endured the last three decades? What gave us hope and courage to choose integrity over despair when faced with personal crises? What have we learned about our own strengths? How have our views of beauty changed?

These are timeless questions for those of us who shall not live as long as Keat’s  Grecian Urn.

Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan

painting by Paul Grignon

Love everyone
Hate no-one
Move to the edge

(Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016)

David Brooks on How to Roll Back Fanaticism

"In fact, the most powerful answer to fanaticism is modesty. Modesty is an epistemology directly opposed to the conspiracy mongering mind-set. It means having the courage to understand that the world is too complicated to fit into one political belief system. It means understanding there are no easy answers or malevolent conspiracies that can explain the big political questions or the existential problems. Progress is not made by crushing some swarm of malevolent foes; it’s made by finding balance between competing truths — between freedom and security, diversity and solidarity. There’s always going to be counter-evidence and mystery. There is no final arrangement that will end conflict, just endless searching and adjustment."  David Brooks, New York Times

Evolution

Painting by Paul Grignon

Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau

died in America.

Four boys escaped Lejac and froze

to death on the lake near home.

The army in Uzbekistan executed children

as an example.

We are not really toilet trained.

We are trained to believe we are.

I have learned how to scream
with my mouth closed.

from Infinite Power, Ekstasis 2016

A Teachable Moment From the Fire Chief

"If you are sitting at the coop gas pump, while tanker is filling the fuel system, don't light a cigarette. If you do and someone gestures not to do that, don't give them the finger and launch into a swearing and threatening tirade against them, especially with your kid in the car. Not only does this make you an extreme moron, but a moron who likely throws his butts out the car window and is also enabling the next generation of morons." Rick D. Jackson


Our whole island is at risk when even one person cannot see the danger in their actions in the middle of a dry hot spell with forests all around us. Our species is in danger when social institutions are unable to convince individuals we are all in this together.

DRUMBEG HOUSE STUDIO ANNUAL SALE

The Wakans cordially invite you to

DRUMBEG HOUSE STUDIO ANNUAL SALE

Elias Wakan: Sculpture (some of the smaller pieces will be up for silent auction)

Naomi Beth Wakan: Books (including her recent title, “Back and Forth”) and her now famous poetry bags.

Time: Sunday, August 27th, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

Place: 3085 Mander Road (first road to the right off Stalker)

Refreshments

Everyone Welcome (family, friends and house guests are welcome too )

10% of the sales will go to The Commons

This is a free event

Info: naomi@naomiwakan.com

Off-islanders, there is good swimming close by. 

www.eliaswakan.com                 www.naomiwakan.com

Naomi Beth Wakan

3085 Mander Rd

Gabriola, BC,  V0R 1X7

Defending Democracy: by Russell McNeil

Why I am fighting for the survival of democracy, and why you must too: The Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas are not just clever governing principles. They are concepts deeply embedded in - and part of - the natural law of the universe. Defending democracy isn't an option. You and I are required to defend democracy with every fiber of our intellect - even to the death. We have no option here. Read on:

The only stoic commandment (more a direction than a “commandment”) is to “live according to nature.” This means we are directed by nature to exercise virtue-based critical thinking in all that we do. Nature, meaning nature’s law, is the model we follow, because nature’s law is perfect; it is beautiful as all perfect things must be; and, we are drawn to beauty, through an attraction called love; and love brings us to the place where beauty and truth converge. We are drawn to the Law by our love of its beauty. When we get close we behold its truth. As a physicist/scientist, I get this. You must too:

Beauty is truth,

truth beauty,

that is all you know on earth,

and all you need to know. 

~ John Keats

This is more than a quaint ancient idea. This view of nature as a divine cosmic dance, animated by universal law, survives unscathed after nearly 2,500 years. If you or I were magically transported back to the steps of the Agora in the Athens of 350 BC and introduced to Xeno or Chrysippus – the two founders of Stoicism – the news we would share with them about what we know now about nature in the 21st century - would be met with rapt attention, but not disbelief.

Our stoic ancestors would be impressed with our new wisdom about the mechanics of nature with its four or five basic laws – a mechanics now in search of a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. But interestingly enough – as philosophers - they would ask themselves what new insights our modern laws brought in their pursuit of self knowledge, to know oneself? Might quantum mechanics – for example – be read in ways that would allow me to know myself better?

But the stoics had already read a great deal into the law of nature, long before we moderns uncovered its recent secrets: the Greeks understood - at least qualitatively – four ancient laws: 1. Gravity (they called it affinity); 2. Constancy - in essence the idea of energy conservation; 3. Entropy – the necessity and normality of change; and 4., that cosmic cycles lay at the heart of the rubric of nature. These four ideas are still in play – although many others have been added in the past few thousand years.

These four older “laws” - were read by ancient stoics allegorically - as parables - with deep portent for human purpose. Lest you think that the ancient stoic idea expired with the birth of Christianity - think again. The Christian world view borrowed heavily from stoicism and included this idea too. The four Christian gospels were to be read allegorically as parables that were to guide our actions in life. Nature - according to the Christian view - was to be seen as a fifth gospel which also was intended to be read in this way.

These readings of nature’s law (shared by ancient theists and non-theists alike) taught generally that actions and attitudes that alienate us from nature are not rational. Specifically, anger and dishonesty have no meaning in nature, and hence have no purpose in life. Nor does nature ever act in a thoughtless way – nature follows its internal law with unerring perfection. Humans are also social – nature teaches us that through its various affinities. This implied harmony in nature requires humans – who are also in nature - to work in concert and cooperation with one another. And so in stoicism, the Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas – were Stoic influenced reason derived attempts to mirror nature’s law in civil law – human law - and these designs became the templates for our modern civil contracts: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the constitutions and charters of most modern liberal democracies, including our own Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

I must defend democracy - and you must too. My survival, your survival and the planet's survival depend on this. We have no other options. #TheResistence

Other post from Russell McNeil CONFRONTING EVIL