December 1, 2022: Echoes in The Nothingness. It is Not What It Seems

December 1, 2022: Echoes in The Nothingness. It is Not What It Seems

Yes, a mighty winds a blowin’,
Cross the land and cross the sea
It’s blowin’ peace and freedom
It’s blowin’ equality
Yes, it’s blowin’ peace and freedom
It’s blowin’ you and me! “The Folksmen” from the movie A Mighty Wind, 2003

Be Lovingly Open With My Emotions. From the movie The Love Guru, 2008

Yep, some humorous sarcasm involved in waving those flags. What’s really being pointed out is another example of the art of fiction used to tell truths, pointing to facts, alternative or otherwise, being used to tell lies. Sometimes, many times, the echoes bouncing around in the The Nothingness is not what it seems at first blush—those echoes are certainly not the voice of God.

The “mighty winds a’ blowin’” nowadays—again—is a nearly ubiquitous human fart. It is the primary contributor to the disastrous climate change of “democracy.” Slogans, flag hugging, and terror management are the infrastructure of the chicken-littles as well as the tools of the grifters. Speaking in acronyms, the linguistic flatulence emerges and polarizes those needing someone to blame, as though that is problem-solving. None of this comes from only one “side,” it comes from false clarity at best, from opportunity to allow our devils loose at worst. Check the language, check the acronyms, watch the behaviors that follow. People have “tells” that reveal their true path, intentional or not. On the other hand, perhaps many are not interested in nuance—it’s too hard. Ironically, the difficulties are compounded by not paying attention.

The real issue is what we are going to do about our bad behavior, not who has bad behavior. When I asked my father (he was a POW in WWII) about the flag burning in the 1960s, he said something along the lines of “it’s a flag, not a country.” This from a man who teared up talking about helping to sew and raise an American flag to fly over the prison encampment when WWII was near an end and the guards had disappeared. Despite his lingering troubles as a human who was dehumanized on such a scale, he knew something about the difference between forgiving and forgetting. There are so many such stories about so many such times, so pick something—go current if you wish as unfortunately such human atrocities are not just history. It is not just the atrocities of one people or culture or political or religious belief, but a continuing story of what we do to ourselves and to others. We do so, because of what—we were born and have the biological evidence of a cord being cut, of being unwillingly separated?

The mighty wind is coming from our assholes where our lips should be. We ride the dead horses and think the decaying smell is blowing from someone else. Hear that echo? It is not from another voice. The Nothingness that cry bounces around in is an easel where we have painted hate while espousing love. We dehumanize others, while buddying up with uniforms and flags and pithy sayings and raising a glass to us and decrying them. If that is the level of behavior that makes us feel like we belong, we don’t. It is not what it seems alright.

If one is going to get a blow job, best if it’s because another loves us instead of gaslighting us to get what they want. If history has taught us anything, it is that not one of the long line of despots would have gotten anywhere without a critical mass of us helping them become despots. It is not them who need to change, it is us.

The Not-Just-a-Bumper-Sticker Corner

A cog in the wheel is better than a clog, unless the wheel needs to stop turning. Therein lies the rub.

Paradise is not some other place. Neither is hell.

A Story, Fictional and Not

The Gamble

They were losing and losing badly. It was not the first time—they were a four-time loser at the very least.

Love of someone or something, requires being pot-committed, going all in. It is a feeling of no-choice, unlike what faces the posers and the players.

Having no choice can feel like freedom, but can turn out very wrong. It had. Others have their own notion of what is and thus belief versus belief comes to the table.

It is hard to correctly read the tells of newbies or manipulators. Unconscious and conscious processes can get tangled up in the interactions and polarizations.

A tough beat at those tables is difficult to shed, a feeling like the gods were in on it. Revenge can well-up, a pent-up rage seeking nourishment and redemption.

Sometimes one wins such gambles, reinforcing the behavior. One more time seeking an ephemeral love, as though being saved by luck is nourishment and redemption.

The gambling string will run out. A loser is born, and dies. Or perhaps they got away with it and left the table in time. Still the string has run out.

There is no way to avoid the gamble, only the interpretation of outcomes. Or maybe there was another way, they wondered: sitting with the outcome, not interpreting?

That seemed like a gamble itself. Do they go all-in again? Or play around the edges, hoping to leave that table with a bit of “winnings”?

Perhaps a “loser” is not one who lost at a love, but one who did not take the chance? There is no guarantee, there is only taking the chance, once all the variables have been vetted again and again.

That was a point—little sense in gambling long odds. Do the work, then take the chance if the opportunity comes up. It had for this being—all the times there was a clear chance to take, it was taken, even if a bad beat was the outcome.

The at-least-four-time loser felt the table’s label. So many nodding, knowing heads. The loser could only avoid so-labeling themselves. That was not worth the gamble. Salvation in self-crucifixion is a long-shot at best and only after a lot of agony.

The struggle was inevitable, suffering optional, even if all those who felt like winners needed a loser to feel justified in their own self-labeling. It felt difficult to accept the categorizations, but worse to bend the wind.

It was a gamble to accept, but in this case, one well-played. A bad beat is a bad beat, not a banishment from learning love, again, for the first time.

Humbled and sobered, the “loser” moved on, seen by others as sad or deserving. There was no play in getting back in, to change their minds or to make them the “losers.”

It was strange, like going against the grain, unless that was what had been done in the first place, creating hard tracks, easy to follow until noticing the grain was actually going in another direction.