Nothing Has Meaning

You know, we all talk about problems, issues, challenges and so on, and usually there is someone or something at fault in our descriptions and tirades. Almost without fail this blame goes to an external force. Much like the blame game of life played on a personal level, the blame game of politics extends to society and governments. We the people point our fingers and continue our apathetic bloated lives. I don’t extend this globally, just to our so called first world. (Get ready to revisit the Declaration of Independence tomorrow.)

As I insist on personal responsibility so do I insist on cultural responsibility.

Anything human and human affected you see in this world you don’t like, don’t value, don’t believe to be healthy, blame on yourself, blame on us. Personally and as a group. And the blame extends way beyond what most of us can see. For example, most of us value clean fresh water while at the same time destroying such sources on a global level.

This idea of blaming ourselves reminds me a bit of the famous Walt Kelly quote from Pogo.

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

This is a play on the word deluded. If your integrity is diluted do you become deluded? Or is being deluded a sign of a diluted morality? A diluted sense of reality?

Or would deluded be an enriched sense of reality?

Mass delusion is a sign of religion. Mass dilution is a sign of moral decay.

Old concept. Old overused phrase, maybe. But I do ponder on this one all the time, momentarily, both puns intended.

We can only be here now. We are only here now. We exist instantaneously at all times, literally. Yet, the past and the future haunt us. We spend our lives striving to be something we are not, to have something we have not, to understand something we do not, to conceive of purpose we do not have. Everybody, yeah everybody.

We are cursed by the vanity of humanity and the pain and suffering of self awareness and self pity.

Only the enlightened will realize the truth, we are in this moment for good.

The other day I had occasion to visit with a man who appeared to be under a lot of stress. Made me think about zen and letting it all go. Made me think about how being under stress is an externalization of an internal process. Made me think about how all the spiritual study in the world falls flat if one let’s the little stuff dominate.

Stress. Pain. Emotion. All created by us as a reaction.

But what is this reaction really? An action that reflects our core. Here we go again. I am getting tired of using this word but I have to say it again, it comes down to what you value. Values aren’t only positives, they are also negative. So those of us who stress, value stress or we wouldn’t do it. Before Hazel goes off on being at the whim of reality I do want to acknowledge that these philosophies are dealing with concepts, not absolutes in the practical sense, but absolutes in the literal sense. Only I control me. How I do that and to what affect comes down to how well I know myself, physically and mentally.

So letting it all go reflects our values really. Values are the core of everything human beyond physical hard wired reactions. Those too are values but mastering the physical body is probably a greater challenge than mastering the mental body. Someday maybe. And yes it has been done.

The strange conclusion reached here is that stress like all perception is a self imposed pain that we are either addicted to, or we don’t have the vision to see that we are making our own pain. John Lennon once said “no one can harm you, feel you own pain” in his absolutely fantastic song I Found Out off of Plastic Ono Band, his first solo album. That nails this topic perfectly.

We really are our own worst enemies, would but that we would just focus on ourselves we could become Off Every Day.

Letting it all go will lead you to a way of being that can be frightening in its detachment but very cool in its calm.

Now that I am in the arena of slogans I find myself analyzing the deeper meanings, or rather the other interpretations of such slogans.

Don’t Settle For Less, I like it, if you see life as an accumulation of stuff, materialism, or in the case of an advertising slogan don’t settle for anything but us.

But then again, what if don’t settle for less is a reference to the realization of the meaning of life? Or spiritual enlightenment? Or philosophizing truth? Finding truth?

As all of the oblique approaches to a phrase begin to congeal, I start to really settle. . . for less.

This is a pretty simple idea, or shall I say fact. The fact is. . . you are who you are or should that be you are whom you are but that doesn’t have nearly the ring to it.

In essence this fact states that we are all fixed, static, solid, set, unmoving or in another way we are all complete beings with a set of tools, our minds and bodies, that are already in place and unmovable. Provocative because this opens the whole not so appealing nature vs. nurture debate, a debate we aren’t having here.

Accepting that we are who we are is difficult for most people I have ever observed, especially in this western United States of America culture where contentment is not present and success is based on a set of external values that few ever achieve where we are typically led to believe negative views of ourselves, not led literally, as we are all responsible for ourselves, but led by circumstance to tend toward seeing ourselves in a negative light. This is an illusion produced by mass delusion.

So this is really a repeat of my bit on seeing yourself. Seeing yourself is step one and is tantamount to accepting yourself. I ain’t talking about some crazy break down crying love thyself bogus crap, I am talking about simply seeing the truth.

This reminds me of The Matix scene where the boy, one of the hopefuls, is bending spoons and Neo has a chat with him. The kid has a British accent which of course lends a nice flavor to his philosophical discussion of reality. Do not try to bend the spoon; that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon. Then you will see, it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. That is one side of the conversation probably not verbatim but you get the gist. This opens yet another great topic for Nothing Has Meaning but lets stick to our discussion here.

Peeling back the layers of polarity and illusion to reveal self, accept self, and understand that the self exists, as it is, begins the inexorable journey to contentment.

This is really about letting go, letting go of everything, then deciding what you want to hold on to, with point of view and values. Seems like a dichotomy, and it is, suffice to say we humans generally get involved with reality. And Letting Go has such a crappy connotation but there isn’t really a better way to put it, or a more effective way. Letting go of emotion, letting go of attachment, letting go of reality, letting go of meaning.

The Matrix has the letting go bit too, but instead using the Matrix metaphor, the digital virtual reality.

So expose the core and you’ll see more, and relax for a change.

Part of what illumination means, other than nothing inherently, is that vision clears and extremes fade. By this I mean that finding neutrality becomes possible. All too often, in fact almost universally, we are polarized, have an extreme opinion, one way or no way. Now I am not referring to living extremely, for example, drinking alcohol in mass quantities or not drinking alcohol at all, that merely reflects a lust for life, I am referring to modes of thought, paradigms, concepts and relating these ideas to each other.

Polarization can be a real drag if you want to have a conversation that involves meaningful exchange. (Remember Twin Peaks? When Bobby’s father referred to meaningful exchange? Hilarious!) Basically you are not communicating but listen to twin diatribes, or you wind up nodding your head while thinking. . . what an idiot.

So I am pondering this place of contentment that is reached when you are willing to acknowledge the truth, that meaning is not objective, and that peace is in fact the absence of extremes, or poles, or polarization. That is when the ride can become almost so serene as to be pointless, which of course it is, anyway, pointless.

The point I am making (pun intended folks) is that on the teeter totter of life the middle is where contentment lies, the middle is where true thoughtfulness can be achieved, and the middle is also where one would appear to be less passionate, but in fact, ever more passionate. Because then the desire to communicate can actually be increased due to the revelation that there is a place, where I can go, when I feel. . . no, not a Beatles quote but, there is a place of peace that doesn’t involve anything at all.

Peace out.

Nived and I discussed this at length once, verbally and in writing.

I have to admit his arguments are compelling, though in the theme of the post on core issues are just a bit outside the concept here.

The more I ponder, the more I see the truth of the idea that our actions, how we live, what we do, display our true intents and desires and ultimately values.

Of course I had reached this conclusion before I ever considered anything at all to do with anything to do with actions speak louder than words. The idea is obvious.

When an idea stands up to scrutiny, then you have something.

Nived points out that just because we may or may not do something to achieve something we desire does not mean we do not value that thing.

Agreed.

Again, that is a little off the track of the core concept, that what we truly desire we seek and achieve. That a failure or a perceived failure to achieve a desired goal is in fact not a failure at all but a complete lack of true commitment to that goal. That what we want we get. That the what of the equation can be unlimited and that the how actually defines the what in actuality, actually.

We are all successful at achieving what we want in the how we do it.

So where is the bottom line? What about starving abused children? What about the holocaust?

All good questions. Remember this is a concept, philosophy, philosophizing.

Concepts are big, not detailed.

The result is the title, you are getting what you want.

But are you getting what you need? The Stones were wrong.

Today we lost Barbaro.

Today the world lost Barbaro.

What was it that made this horse so different?

Our perception?

The symbol of unbelievable greatness coupled with a great heart?

Whatever it was he is gone and we are all the less for it.

Barbaro is free.