A Grin and Grim Short Story, Part II

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Warning: The following may seem cynical and depressing, but is actually meant to be an inoculation against cynical and depressing.

All right, the part I scenario above all seems kind of grim and not much grin—and for good reason. It is as though the entirety of humanity became besieged with a kind of autoimmune disease with the ears attacking the eyes and vice versa, taste attacking touch, smell attacking taste—all the senses working against each other instead of working together. The brain and heart began to battle, emotions went awry—the entire corporeal existence became a battleground and the battleground then became the raisons d’être—the reasons for being. Grins and grims now seemed to have a purpose as simply being in a state of enjoyment and wonder did not have the proper chops for feeling alive. That the grins and grims were not feeling so alive until battlegrounds were created was lost on them. In any case, winning was for winners and losing was for losers. It was all very clear and freed up a lot of time so that battleground victories could be addressed and achieved.

Along the way, some grins and grims began to think that battling was not as important as cooperation and that cooperation could be achieved by merely accepting differing mindsets and freedoms. It seemed like a great idea and was even put into practice sometimes. But when existence seemed like it might be all hunky-dory, some deadly event happened—or was contrived—and accepting freedoms did not seem as important as being aggressive in overcoming what could be described as archenemies—though some knew the only real archenemy existed within. But, as it seemed rather silly to anoint one’s own self as great, victories were needed as a litmus test and cooperation was about pointing to greatness. Of course, some grins and grims knew that it was all great, but that was just too simple for newly awakening folks to accept.

Now A Great Divide and A Great Tension became like concrete, though it seemed like it had always been so, but then again, humans are not the most accurate of historians. The divide and tension was thus firmly established and accepting differing mindsets and freedoms came to mean tolerating others at best and standing ready to quash them if deemed necessary.

There was no other way for life to manifest. Happiness was delusional, feeling good highly transitory and certainly not predominant, and diminishment was thought to be the ultimate outcome, unless one believed in a glorious and ascendant afterlife, assuming one didn’t get a bitter and descendant one, which was very possible if one was not victorious in their physical existence.

And so it came to pass that people accepted the way: Sometimes some lived well and seemed to prosper. Sometimes few lived well and seemed to wither. In the latter case it was seen as clearly their own fault, though many well-to-doers gave old clothes and canned goods away to such poor folks.

However, with any given divide, a notion of something else was also created. That something else could be an even greater divide or a lesser one, or—get this—a divide that really wasn’t. So another kind of dissatisfaction arose, one that wanted better than what was. Of course that was another kind of trouble as it meant loosening the death grip humans had on their way of living, doing, and being.

And that is the state of affairs at the present time—a multigenerational gestation gingering gauging goodness, and then, all turtle-like (no offense to turtles), pulling back into their shell.

There are some, and were some, who understood that differences were the way. The eyes need not beat down the ears, the heart need not beat down reason, and vice versa. Differences were ways to enrich, rather than diminish, the human apprehension of reality. Of course, sometimes things went wrong or were not necessarily helpful, but hey, that’s actually positive feedback.

There will of course continue to be factions and differences. But we may not have to fight them anymore—we simply may continue to allow. A Big Consternation may occur as allowing seems weird—and to be sure, there are some things worth stopping, as in plugging up the ears to avoid screeching noises. But those are temporary, as opposed to primary, doings. However, it may be that the new learning and primary raisons d’être—the reasons for being—will be to allow awareness to guide us in The Great Delight, as opposed to experience being the only guide. Then we may relearn what we knew prior to allowing experience to take over: A grin and a grim are both the children and the parents of the one thing as well as the two (or more) things. And when we learn to grin even when it’s grim, we have righted the ship. And then we may become wise—as in no amount of grim can usurp The Grin, even when we’re really pissed off.

And that’s how we re-member what’s really sacred.

So really, there is no secret, even if there is a lot of work… :)

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