What Will you Do in These Waking Moments?
Well… I left these last four entries hang in order for almost all the regular readers here to have plenty of time to read and think… now, as promised, some concluding remarks…sort of.
It makes some sense to prattle on about the four forces in the order. We placed them out on the table, however, they are forces that mingle so some combinations will be offered out of order.
Industrialization and seeking peace and joy
The world has —all 8 billion of us—built the most productive human race in the known history of the planet. We’ve formed processes and people that can produce material goods in an amazing fashion. We’ve as a planet adopted the narrative that “if you work hard enough you can have more and more” and that more is better (of course some are claiming the counter to this saying minimalism is the way to go.)Yet the irony here is that those preaching the minimalist approach seem to attempt to preach it more everyday to more people all the time and appear to be arguing that we need this life theme to replace our current one. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground being offered… again dualism seems to be winning out. there also down’s seem to be any recognition that what is minimal to one might just be extravagant. To someone else… We don’t seem to hear anyone suggesting that some folks need a lot of props to write and tell their life stories while others just need a piece of chalk and a sidewalk. Why is it that we are afraid to adopt complexity and ranges of successful. Paths? If we admit there could be lots of life stories to choose from do we create a threat to our security? Is there a fear in trying to put together our peace and joy puzzle if it has 100 pieces and can once together look like four different things instead of pulling out the same old 10 piece puzzle that can only look like a sailboat?
Science—really?
Let’s say we go into our favorite neighborhood establishment where everybody knows. Your name… no not Applebee’s …. And we had a hankering for a Long Island Iced Tea. Would we know if it tasted good or not—I believe so. Would we like it if we had to judge the taste of it by drinking each of its elements or ingredients separately?… If the bartender set each out clearly and said drinking each one after the other is the same as taking in the potent cocktail… would you say or think damn right? The point is… do we get meaning about experiencing by breaking things apart and defining things that way. if you even say “not always” then maybe seeking peace and joy requires knowing and using a lot of different lenses to view things, a lot of different tempos to play the notes, or setting off down a lot of different roads to see what destinations might be out there or more importantly what journeys are awaiting a curious mind. The science story goes hand in hand with the industrial story… Yet if we only had one book to learn from what richness would our education lack?
Dualism in foreign affairs (and in the ways we understand others etc.)
It’s hard to admit we want to belong. And we want to be different just like everybody else. We want to be afraid of the same things as others why… because at it’s simplest core… in an attention economy we have elevated to mythic status the importance of what other people think about us. If we just wanted to share what is unique about you what would social media look like or would we even have it? It’s hard to tell others what we experience and who we are without telling people what you are not… I’m not a Democrat or a Liberal.. or A conservative or a Republican or a socialist or a Methodist or a New York Yankees fan. These may be all good things to know…but what does that tell you when it comes to knowing which shoe I put on first? Getting to know someone isn’t easy…but really getting to know someone is the best compliment you can give them in some ways. However, imagine trying to learn about someone by starting the questions you ask them by saying things like… Whall we go out to dinner—You don’t like pineapple pizza do you? Or “I was going to wear a green shirt you hate green right?” Sure that sounds odd…but how often do we speak the loudest about the things we think others will hate with us? Maybe we start seeking peace and joy in the company. Of others by exploring three, four, or five, things about them instead of repeating the same old paper. Or plastic questions? The point here is not just that we overuse defining people by learning about. What they don’t like—we often use the same questions and they are way too often either this or that choices. We seemingly feel comfortable with forcing the extremes to be put out there front and center. Now when things are interconnected so often in today’s world we are left dazed and confused if the cause of something (or the blame for something) isn’t clear and simple. It is hard to seek peace in a world of complex challenges if we expect simple and clear paths and solutions so maybe expecting dual contexts just doesn’t help?
Now I’ll get to the media matters in a second… right after a little summary. You see seeking peace. And joy isn’t as easy as it used to be. Why? Because the huge “stories we tell ourselves” the forces so to speak became such a part of our contexts that it became like breathing or blinking—you are experiencing. It most all the time, yet aren’t really aware of the meanings being constructed with it.
Now let’s talk media… You see media once was the great smoother. It taught generation after generation. In this world the same industrial/scientific/dualistic story/myth for a century or more and now well now… competing stories and media interference and static create a whole new era where the youth build their own worlds to live in and they mingle the virtual and the actual physical worlds. A poor child in the real world can be a wealthy game player. Now in the world of JFT and crypto… the greedy and the wealthy are once again trying to gain control of the narrative and evidence suggests it could happen, and then again maybe not LOL?
As the old narratives fall apart they become like the highway that you used to drive without noticing it until the pot holes started giving you flats….
so what conclusion are there…
The forces that have brought our ship to here remain pretty large, however, now we can and probably will become aware of them as they fall to pieces. In seeking peace and joy it might be best if we are aware of the forces we have ridden and start to experiment with new ideas..you know stay ahead of the curve so to speak… At the very least start to admit these things aren’t the same and that we live in a world where acceptance and negotiation are going to be far mor the norm than ever before … Fortunately acceptance allows us to gain the most from change, bargaining allows us the chance to clarify our true values, and adopting different views lets us see many more aspects of life and thus have a lot more chances to see what is possible and good.
anyway… read the four previous entries and be ready to salute the forces that have flooded your soul and then let your awareness provide. The light for many paths open on the seeking peace and joy journey.
Peace.
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