eThoughts : The Importance of a Cause?

It seems having a cause is about as necessary as having breath. I wonder why?

I’ve noticed that much of our history and our psychology and our culture and our philosophy and our religion seems to emphasize and anchor us to the “noble” journey of the quest to triumph over one cause or the other (I’ve taken to calling it the Tolkien Syndrome after the Lord of the Rings, but one can stick in any “heroic” story).

The Really Big Cause of course is that good and evil thing. That guy has been around since the dawn of humans, maybe marked the dawn of humans. However, I’ve also noticed that all of these evils that are proposed and that seem to be assaulting us have not been stopped. The world’s mightiest armies and mightiest bombs, the world’s smartest and craziest people have not prevailed.

We treat the dichotomy of good and evil as though they should be easily understood. We think we only have to take our labels and scan some individual or some group or some ideology and the identity of good or evil will activate the beeps and flashing lights of our template. We are enamored with Homeland Security.

Surely there are human, cultural, and natural asteroids–things approaching us that will or could wipe us out. However, shall I invest my life experiences, shall I base the cohesiveness of my identity, in being a Monitor? It occurs to me that there are other, if not harder ways, to treat the soul. When I give up, when I surrender, it seems to me there is so much more time. And that is hard for a being so devoted to marking, transforming, or stamping out ignorance and evil. And in surrender, I notice something else–I am slightly adrift, without a Cause. I just am.

It is tough. But it seems to me that state is the real beginning of nourishment.

Would I fight if my family, or myself, or my way of life were attacked? Yes, in that order and with my resolve most clear in the case of family and diminishing from there. But such a fight will not feed my soul or mark a life well lived. There are no winners in such a battle, there are only many scars.

I will fight and I will be vigilant. But I will also be aware of awareness. It is in that realm, which extends through all things, that Causes take a back seat and we steep our beings in the tea of Beauty.