eThoughts : We Are and the Age of Clarity

(For more Holiday thoughts, go to: Holiday Thoughts for 2003, or 2004 Holiday Thoughts and 2004 Holiday Thoughts Continued, or Holiday Thoughts for December 2005 and 2005 Holiday Thoughts Continued), or Holiday Thoughts: December 2006.)

As I previously said, a realization that we’re all in this together and the clarity to see what really is rather than confusing what is with what we think, is not about to end the human struggle, just the unnecessary struggle. Thinking is big and is not about to be forfeited in an Age of Clarity either, but thinking is not the same as the way it is—and that’s the problem. Thinking is about, well, thinking. What is, is what is. Thinking about riding a bicycle is not the same as riding one. Thinking is designed to make one aware, doing is designed to make one be. Both are necessary, but confusing one as the other is a major filing error and a huge and unnecessary component in human life.

One of the reasons some like sports is because it is in the competition where we see who is whom. All of the talk is just that—talk. Oh tis true that a competitor’s psyche may become mixed up about what they can actually do by way of their opponent’s mouth, but we still can’t tell until the behaviors are made manifest.

So it is with politics, religion, academics, work, getting married, buying a house or a car, owning a pet—all of our thinking and supposing goes into the creation of a reality, but it is the manifested reality where the rubber meets the road. This meeting place, this interface, is where we can clearly see how our thoughts relate to our reality.

Take a look around. Take a look at what each of us has done, both individually and together. Without thoughts making excuses, without disappointment and expectations, what do we have? Have we manifested what we really think we are?

Basically it looks like a mess to me. Sure there are bright spots, even without deluding ourselves. But we are mostly a power-seeking people—whether it’s how to get it or whom or what we need to bow to. We mostly have an energy and economic policy that is petroleum-based (with major negative side-effects), we are mostly massively short-sighted, and we often think we’re doing good when we’re really doing the opposite. We are not really a civil people, though we can shine in some moments—but is it how we handle the big, occasional problems that bring out our civility or how we handle the daily problems? It could be both, but where are our minds most of the time? We seem to be an annoyed people, annoyed that we have to pay attention or that we have to change our attention. We are stressed. We don’t have nearly as much fun as we are meant to have. And we can be really lazy with our body—we sit and we eat, and how we sit is mostly about slumping and what we eat is not all that nourishing. We do not do much that is sacred—we drink to get out of it, rather than to drink to enhance (yep, depressing anxiety just a little, raises consciousness). We smoke because we don’t know what to do with our energy. We do things when we’re not ready to do them or when the time is already past. And so on.

We can say all we want about how we’ve progressed in freedom and helping others, and we have in some cases, but more technology is not the same as more freedom, and more food is not the same as more comfort or free time, and a crowded world is not the same as a united one. Yet another episode of the Grinch stealing the Holiday spirit? I don’t think so. If it’s largely true, then it’s largely the way it is. Maybe it’s about getting us in the Holiday spirit. None of the things I’ve mentioned have to be that way. We will surely go through some withdrawal as we shift to a less crazy, more sane existence, but what legacy do we want to leave, to have, to create? Sometimes what we leave is what we give—when the dust has cleared and our lives finished, what will be the view of our social identity by those whose lives are yet to be? Will we have perpetuated our fears of not getting or not having or we will have put more than prayer and hope into our vision of civility and peace?

It’s a New Year coming round—another opportunity to get it right. Let’s quit trying and start doing—regularly. Let’s make it a really tough year for comedians to make fun of idiocy masquerading as insight. Let’s make it a good year for all of us to be making jokes about our new doing, which will likely be very, very clumsy and very, very funny. But, like loving to watch a new puppy, or kitten, or new, little human, growth and doing can touch us deeply and clear the way for love, even as we laugh and enjoy. Is there a better way to learn and to grow and to start anew?