I'm really looking forward to listening to this podcast. I do struggle with the concept that all of us are one. There is so much evil in the world, and so much sadness when people we love are taken from us. Lately I've tried to think of us all as leaves on one huge tree. We age and fall off in season, and when we fall, we are absorbed into the soil and become nutrients for new life. Nothing in nature is wasted. So perhaps those "evil elements," individuals who seem bent on destroying others, are "leaves" that have been infested with some sort of invasive parasite. And those "leaves" who fall while still in their youth are struck by an early frost. This picture helps me grasp the concept of "all as one." After all, whenever I go out into nature, I feel more a part of everything, and I also feel ageless.
There's a great lack of compassion in our world that's accompanied by so very much anger or rage. I myself have been angrier over the last few years — perhaps in large part in relation to the Internet 'angry algorithm' sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
However, we, at least as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior; and if enough people do this and perform truly humane acts, positive change on a large(r) scale may result.
Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
Still, it could be that the human race so desperately needs a unifying existential fate-determining common cause, that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack is what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
Perhaps humanity would unite for the first time ever to defend against, attack and defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and perceptions of differences, both real and perceived — especially those involving race, religion and nationality.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. [For me, the movies Independence Day and, especially, Enemy Mine come to mind.]
Then again, I've been told that one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.
Yet, maybe some five or more decades later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And again we slide downwards.
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living and, above all, those who live without love” (spirit of school headmaster Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2).
For some of us, the greatest gift life offers is that someday, preferably sooner rather than later, we get to die — and not have to repeat the suffering. But when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from their literal life sentence.
And, of course, reincarnation — especially back into the average bitter Earthly human existence an indefinite number of times, the repetition of mostly unhappiness — would be the ultimate unthinkable Hell. Ergo, the following poem:
__
I awoke from another very bad dream, yet another horrid reincarnation nightmare
where having blessedly died I’m still bullied towards rebirth back into human form
despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace.
My bed wet from sweat, I futilely try to convince my own autistic brain
I want to live, the same traumatized dysthymic brain displacing me
from the functional world.
.
Within my nightmare a mob encircles me and insists that life, including mine,
is a blessing.
I ask them for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist
upon a practical purpose!
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and it’s not enough simply to live
nor that it’s a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers!
.
I’m tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain
that ultimately matters naught, I explain. My own mind brutalizes me like it has
a sadistic mind of its own.
I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance!
Bewildered they warn that one day on my death bed I’ll regret my ingratitude
and that I’m about to lose my life.
I counter that I cannot mourn the loss of something I never really had
so I’m unlikely to dread parting from it.
.
Frustrated they say that moments from death I’ll clamor and claw for life
like a bridge jumper instinctively flailing his limbs as though to grasp at something
anything that may delay his imminent thrust into the eternal abyss.
How can I in good conscience morosely hate my life
while many who love theirs lose it so soon? they ask.
Angry I reply that people bewail the ‘unfair’ untimely deaths of the young who’ve received early reprieve
from their life sentence, people who must remain behind corporeally confined
yet do their utmost to complete their entire life sentence — even more if they could!
.
The vexed mob then curse me with envy for rejecting what they’d kill for — continued life through unending rebirth.
“Then why don’t you just kill yourself?” they yell,
to which I retort “I would if I could. My life sentence is made all the more oppressive by my inability to take my own life.”
“Then we’ll do it for you.” As their circle closes on me, I wake up.
.
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves
they sincerely want to live when in fact
they don’t want to die, so greatly they fear Death’s unknown?
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes.
Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
I'm really looking forward to listening to this podcast. I do struggle with the concept that all of us are one. There is so much evil in the world, and so much sadness when people we love are taken from us. Lately I've tried to think of us all as leaves on one huge tree. We age and fall off in season, and when we fall, we are absorbed into the soil and become nutrients for new life. Nothing in nature is wasted. So perhaps those "evil elements," individuals who seem bent on destroying others, are "leaves" that have been infested with some sort of invasive parasite. And those "leaves" who fall while still in their youth are struck by an early frost. This picture helps me grasp the concept of "all as one." After all, whenever I go out into nature, I feel more a part of everything, and I also feel ageless.
There's a great lack of compassion in our world that's accompanied by so very much anger or rage. I myself have been angrier over the last few years — perhaps in large part in relation to the Internet 'angry algorithm' sending me the stories, etcetera, it has (unfortunately correctly) calculated will successfully agitate me into keeping the (I believe, overall societally-/socially-damaging) process going thus maximizing the number of clicks/scrolls I’ll provide it to sell to product advertisers.
However, we, at least as individuals, can resist flawed yet normalized human/societal nature thus behavior; and if enough people do this and perform truly humane acts, positive change on a large(r) scale may result.
Perhaps somewhat relevant to this are the words of American sociologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), of Obedience Experiments fame/infamy: “It may be that we are puppets — puppets controlled by the strings of society. But at least we are puppets with perception [and] awareness. And perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.”
Still, it could be that the human race so desperately needs a unifying existential fate-determining common cause, that an Earth-impacting asteroid threat or, better yet, a vicious extraterrestrial attack is what we have to collectively brutally endure together in order to survive the longer term from ourselves.
Perhaps humanity would unite for the first time ever to defend against, attack and defeat the humanicidal multi-tentacled ETs, the latter needing to be an even greater nemesis than our own formidably divisive politics and perceptions of differences, both real and perceived — especially those involving race, religion and nationality.
During this much-needed human alliance, we’d be forced to work closely side-by-side together and experience thus witness just how humanly similar we are in the ways that really count. [For me, the movies Independence Day and, especially, Enemy Mine come to mind.]
Then again, I've been told that one or more human parties might actually attempt to forge an alliance with the ETs to better their own chances for survival, thus indicating that our deficient human condition may be even worse than I had originally thought.
Yet, maybe some five or more decades later when all traces of the nightmarish ET invasion are gone, we’ll inevitably revert to those same politics to which we humans seem so collectively hopelessly prone — including the politics of scale. And again we slide downwards.
“Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living and, above all, those who live without love” (spirit of school headmaster Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2).
For some of us, the greatest gift life offers is that someday, preferably sooner rather than later, we get to die — and not have to repeat the suffering. But when suicide is simply not an option, it basically means there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from their literal life sentence.
And, of course, reincarnation — especially back into the average bitter Earthly human existence an indefinite number of times, the repetition of mostly unhappiness — would be the ultimate unthinkable Hell. Ergo, the following poem:
__
I awoke from another very bad dream, yet another horrid reincarnation nightmare
where having blessedly died I’m still bullied towards rebirth back into human form
despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace.
My bed wet from sweat, I futilely try to convince my own autistic brain
I want to live, the same traumatized dysthymic brain displacing me
from the functional world.
.
Within my nightmare a mob encircles me and insists that life, including mine,
is a blessing.
I ask them for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist
upon a practical purpose!
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and it’s not enough simply to live
nor that it’s a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers!
.
I’m tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain
that ultimately matters naught, I explain. My own mind brutalizes me like it has
a sadistic mind of its own.
I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance!
Bewildered they warn that one day on my death bed I’ll regret my ingratitude
and that I’m about to lose my life.
I counter that I cannot mourn the loss of something I never really had
so I’m unlikely to dread parting from it.
.
Frustrated they say that moments from death I’ll clamor and claw for life
like a bridge jumper instinctively flailing his limbs as though to grasp at something
anything that may delay his imminent thrust into the eternal abyss.
How can I in good conscience morosely hate my life
while many who love theirs lose it so soon? they ask.
Angry I reply that people bewail the ‘unfair’ untimely deaths of the young who’ve received early reprieve
from their life sentence, people who must remain behind corporeally confined
yet do their utmost to complete their entire life sentence — even more if they could!
.
The vexed mob then curse me with envy for rejecting what they’d kill for — continued life through unending rebirth.
“Then why don’t you just kill yourself?” they yell,
to which I retort “I would if I could. My life sentence is made all the more oppressive by my inability to take my own life.”
“Then we’ll do it for you.” As their circle closes on me, I wake up.
.
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves
they sincerely want to live when in fact
they don’t want to die, so greatly they fear Death’s unknown?
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes.
Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
_____
P.S. By definition, I’m actually not suicidal.