Author: White Whale

I would like to introduce a counterpoint to my normal doom and gloom and cranky/weird/insightful/ introspection:  http://nhne-pulse.org/2012-was-the-best-year-ever/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nhnepulse+%28NHNE+Pulse%29

I strongly encourage you to watch the video at the end, the 4-ish minute one.

It truly is “wars and rumors of wars”, isn’t it?  If you can’t release the fear here, now, in whatever circumstance you find yourself, you can’t do it anywhere else.  There are people going hungry in Africa and elsewhere, I suspect–who suffer, and of course don’t want to suffer–but who worry less than we do here, surrounded by living conditions far in excess of the greatest kings of old.

There is no reason for me to stop blogging, to stopping trying to understand, to comment, to contribute, but I have every reason to stop worrying, to stop fearing.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.  Don’t remember where I saw that, but I’ve always liked it.

I have not read the book, but find the title evocative.  When distress and misery are around you, do you not still have the opportunity, the chance, to love–not just a person, but yourself and life?

And in truth we have it so easy, at least for now.  It is what MIGHT happen we fear.  I went into a Whole Foods yesterday, and it is miraculous how much stuff they had–the extensive cheese selection, the fresh produce, the olive bar,, the high quality beef, salmon and sausage.

I was going to to this as a separate post, but I’ll ask this question here: if you knew, for sure, that you create your own reality, how easy would it be for you to imagine the best possible future for you?  I suppose it might be easy for some, but I suspect for many of us it would be quite difficult.

In some respects all but the most emotionally healthy people are afflicted with a sort of Multiple Personality Disorder.  We have parts of us that crave success and love and all the good things in life; then we have a part that is afraid of losing what we have, of risking; or which is outright self sabotaging. Many, many people dream less, work less, achieve less because some part of them thinks they aren’t worth it, don’t deserve it.

Certainly that has been the case with me.  This is hard, I think, for people to understand who have not been subjected to sustained efforts to eradicate them.

This is a reasonable piece: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/lets-embrace-michigans-right-to-work-law/article6581742/

It’s my belief that a basic right we have as free citizens is to not be
forced to do something we don’t want to do. That is the basic definition
of oppression, something our country has long fought against, something
many of our citizens fled their homelands to seek refuge from on our
shores.

It is worth reading through them, here.

You will note that 4 through 8 deal in some ways with the means by which a government can restrict a person’s freedom and privacy.  The NDAA violates most of them.

Arguably, the 10th Amendment, as well, should regulate the police power of the Federal government.

Tyranny is something a long time coming, and the first necessary casualty in that war, if it is to be won by the Fascists, is logical integrity.  Words need to be made to mean whatever they need them to mean, and to be mutable even then.

Our leading thinkers–I nearly and incongruently almost said “best”, although “most esteemed” might work as well–have given  up the challenge of word defense.  This is why I feel so much fear for the future.  How can the middle hold when the people who are supposed to keep it together are running around jabbering nonsense?

Edit: Actually, it is worth reading the Preamble, as well, which I had never read:

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at
the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in
order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further
declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending
the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure
the beneficent ends of its institution.

This is not as organized intellectually as I would like, but it is well referenced: http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/scientificproof/scientificproof1.html

It deals with the evidence for the survival of death.  I think www.victorzammit.com is a better initial resource, but the point I wanted to make here is that it is apparently censored in the formerly Great Britain.  Quite literally, EVIDENCE, scientific EVIDENCE is being suppressed.

I will point out again that the Brit’s do not have a Bill of Rights. Orwell got his idea for memory holes from actual work at the BBC.

The right to keep and bear arms–to secure liberty by force if necessary–is second only to the rights of religion, free speech and assembly in our own Bill of Rights.  That placement is very intentional, in my view.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/28/congress-unproductive_n_2371387.html

Why in God’s name would you consider passing new laws being
“productive”? I would consider a Congress that passed NO new laws–no,
one which revoked existing laws–to be “productive”. Beyond any
possibility of contradiction, the existence of new laws is, ipso facto, a
curtailment in our liberty.

Of course, if fascism is your aim, then absolutely you have picked the correct system of measurement.

Guns represent power.  When dispersed among the populace, they represent freedom.  A man or woman choosing to carry a gun is doing more than facilitate self defense: they are choosing response-ability; they are choosing to believe that they themselves are best qualified to protect themselves.  They are rejecting the mindset that protection–and everything else–is somehow OUT THERE, somehow someone else’s job.

The concept of the militia was the citizen-soldier, that every able bodied man was potentially a part of the army, potentially someone who would play a role in our national defense.

Freedom is about self organizing systems, about people getting together to solve problems spontaneously, organically, locally.  Guns are an inextricable part of this.

No guns, no freedom.  It really is that simple.

We will not stop future Newtowns by passing draconian regulations.  We might in fact make them more likely.  In my view, the only moral, sane, responsible response is to question why IN HELL we continue to pretend that suicidal mad-men will check their guns at ANY door.  We consistently disarm prospective citizen soldiers, and prevent them from doing their own police work.

The record is clear: 14 killed on average when the “professionals” do the shooting, and 2.5 when civilians do.  One number is larger than the other, and not likely to change.  There were 26 dead in Newtown.  5 revolvers with 6 rounds would have done that.

We need to focus on common sense, CONSTITUTIONAL solutions.

It is worth pausing a moment to consider what to me is the fact that our Secretary of State, one of the most important officials in our government, faked an illness to avoid testifying about the murder of at least one of her employees–four Americans total–murder seemingly watched by many in her organization, and likely including her.

She faked an illness to avoid answering why the two Americans who chose to fight back were denied AVAILABLE air support.

This is execrable, nauseating.  Honor is not a word which means anything to her, or anyone in the current government, as far as I can tell.

I read that the Senate Republicans have said they will not confirm John Kerry until Hillary testifies.  If so, that is a good thing.  We will fail as a nation if we cannot get more people doing their jobs with integrity.

Driving the frozen north last week I was looking out my windshield, pondering the sensation of pleasure.  I have fun watching leaves blow, and clouds move, and the movement of light in the sky, and just about everything.  And it occurred to me that behind EVERYTHING you see there is God.  When you reach out to an object, God is behind it.  When you draw your emotions out in objects, you are already moving towards the worship–the connection with, the recognition of–God.

In Asian traditions Tantrism consists in many specific practices, but what I would submit is that the essential one is sensuality.  It invokes emotion, and connection. It is not an ascetic austerity, devoid of humor and blood, but on the contrary the pursuit of wisdom through sensation, through pleasure.  Perhaps most famously, sexual intercourse is made a ritual act of worship.

Idolotry is what you get when you focus on an object.  What I realized is that the whole point of their practice is to see that we exist in a web–the meaning of the word, as I recall–of connections.  Traditional meditation tends to cut off connections.  It tends to frown on emotional expression.  But I feel that this also curtails all the natural happy energies of life, those that make it enjoyable.  And I can’t see how anyone unable to live happily in this life has in any way warranted heaven.  On the contrary: who can give who is miserable, who is punishing themselves all the time?

My depression, which I’ve had substantially my whole life, seems to be breaking. It is quite extraordinary for me not having to fight every step.  And my thinking seems to be clearing.  I think deep thoughts because they are not any more painful for me than regular ones, which is not the case for most people. On balance, I think this has been a good thing.

It occurs to me though, that my body of thought is emotionally weak.  I have developed a theoretical template for defining and facilitating the growth of Goodness, but I have not articulated a Dharma, which is a Sanskrit word meaning many things, but for this purpose I intend duty, or path; a behavioral gestalt that guides and informs decision making and behavior.

What I would submit we must all do roughly daily is spend some time working to understand our world in a dispassionate way and improve it.  This means working daily to grow emotionally, intellectually, and physically.   Emotionally, particularly.

We need to work daily in building an inner beauty that is contagious. This means surrounding ourselves with beauty, in music (I’m listening to this right now, and it is quite pleasant), in poetry, in visual art.  I think laughing daily is highly helpful, and think most people would benefit from watching at least one good comedy a day.  I just ordered the first season of Frazier.

Ponder deeply what you feel when the energy of generosity flows from you.  Most emotionally healthy people will know what I am talking about.  There is a wind that blows when you are being truly loving.  It is very pleasant.  Feel this energy and work to build it.

And notice all the ugliness around you.  You can’t help the world, the shootings and wars–at least in the near term–but why ADD to it with violence in media and music?  Why allow yourself to be addicted to the worst aspects of life?  If you like excitement and adventure, take up motorcycle racing or mountain climbing.   I have no objections to those.  They are healthy outlets for energy.  But why expose yourself to things that drag you down, even if they are titillating or exciting in the process?

Consider that you can raise your daily emotional state, you can improve it, by changing all the inputs you allow. Your unconscious is geared to process what you feed it, and if you are feeding it junk, it is adjusting your internal qualitative state to match.  It is doing what you tell it to do.

I feel heaven sometimes.  It is very different than here.  But why not exuberate (yes, a neologism) it?  Why not develop the courage to be a center of balance and peace and  positive energy?  Why not use your time here to build what is good and wholesome, and oppose with all your heart what is evil and pernicious:?

It can be done.  It has been done.  It needs to be done again, better.