Take for example, AOC* [please], and her Trump era moral outrage over “Kids in Cages” and “Concentration camps”.
This time around, not a peep; even though there’s a quantum amount more packed like sardines; albeit, behind Plexiglas partitions —lot’s of healthy air flow, don’t you know — not that heartless chain link fencing [wasn’t it Obama what put those up?].
Currently, it’s about making it clear that there’s no surge on the border, because "they are children" ... not “insurgents”. And, while we're at it, let's throw in some "white supremacy" shade to seal the deal. I'm taking that smile in the middle of the video as a reaction to how charmed she is with her own cleverness to bring in "white supremacy" into her mix.
*[Some have suggested she has Presidential potential. For shizzle!]
No, we're not gonna stop talking. As if. Or, writing. This is my blog, gosh darn it!
But, it seems we've entered a time when the meanings in language are not only changing but are so fungible that a word can mean anything you want. Especially troubling when large masses of folks cling to the same particular way of speaking ... make that, way of thinking.
Woke on steroids ... the Oscars: Introducing the too, too fast montage in the In Memoriam at the 2021 Oscars, Angela Bassett trotted out acting chops; center-cut and thick: [Feeling exploited with that there.]
The recent events at the southern border: The depth thinking Alexandria Ocasio Cortez asserted recently that the happening at the southern border is not an insurgency because they are children, not insurgents. Also, the same wise one who favored the term "kids in cages" and "concentration camps" when it was politically expedient. [Never mind now that there is a quantum increase of kids, but not in chain-link fences, but behind plexiglass partitions.]
January 6, 2021 melee at the Capital was an "attempted coup": That was as much an attempted coup as a mosquito flying around a hooker's cooch is attempted rape. And that it was directed, encouraged by the political opponent. [Never mind the incendiary Ms. Maxine Waters; that's a false equivalency.]
LBGTQ... XYZ: I used to be sexually confused. Now I'm confused about being sexually confused.
“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time*, in which the so-called present moment** is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past*** and an absorbingly important future****.” —Alan Watts
* "... time, space and causality are not
‘objective’, or extraneous entities, but mental categories in which everything is molded. " Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj I AM THAT
In the light of consciousness all sorts of things happen and one need not give special importance to any. The sight of a flower is as marvelous as the vision of God. Let them be. Why remember them and then make memory into a problem? Be bland about them; do not divide them into high and low, inner and outer, lasting and transient. Go beyond, go back to the source, go to the self that is the same whatever happens. Your weakness is due to your conviction that you were born into the world. In reality the world is ever recreated in you and by you. See everything as emanating from the light which is the source of your own being. You will find that in that light there is love and infinite energy.
Q: Why does the mind always go outwards instead of inwards? Annamalai Swami: Because we don't ask the question, 'Why does the mind go outwards instead of inwards?
This question arises because the nature of happiness is not properly understood. People are always looking for it in the wrong places and by doing the wrong activities. You begin with the impression, which is really a misunderstanding, that happiness is something that can be found outside of you, and furthermore, that you have to do something or go somewhere to reach it. This is your illusion, and it is your belief in this illusion that makes the mind search for happiness in the outside world.
Even when you are told, 'Happiness is within you as your own Self. Look inwards and find it,' still, you think that you have to do something or go somewhere to discover it.
This is the power of Maya, of illusion. This is like one fish in the sea asking another fish for directions to the ocean.
When you are not aware that your glasses are resting on your nose, you may look for them all day, thinking that they are lost.
As a consequence, you believe that they are an object to be found. Eventually, you realize that you were wearing them all the time.
While the search was on, that which was being sought was, in reality, that through which the seeing was taking place. You were looking for an object that finally turned out to be the subject that was doing the seeing.
So it is with the mind and the Self. The mind sets up the notion that the Self needs to be found and then proceeds to hunt for it as if it were some object that could be located in some interior place. This is as foolish as a man with a goat wrapped around his shoulders spending his time wandering around, looking for his goat, and asking everyone he meets where it might be.
Perhaps you remember my introducing you to Uncle "Corny" Wronski. Moonshiner before there was even a name for it. He goes back.
Well, truth be told, the family goes back in such doings. Way back. Late 16th century to put the "way back" into perspective.
Now, for the first time, introducing Wronski Vodka. This swill comes to you from Old Polonia itself, based on a Wronski family secret, closely held recipe and special processing technique — which ironically is special in that it lacks almost no technique. It has come down in an unbroken line of small-batch production from the very beginnings of said undertakings by clan Wronski. It's all there. On the bottle. In the bottle.
One well-known imbiber remarked, "If you could put 'Wronski' in a bottle, this does it!"
Read the insightful observation from Eckhart Tolle.
Keep this question in mind ... now that I notice the voice in my head, just who is it that hears that voice in my head? The answer is given.
Most of us have come across "crazy" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. You have a voice in your head, but you don't notice, because you believe you are this voice, and that you are thinking your thoughts right now. "I don't have a voice in my head" says the voice in your head.
The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by visual images or "mental movies."
The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in again through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This “I am” realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind.
—Eckhart Tolle
Sunday, April 18, 2021
It’s a Level Thing ...
If not Wronski, who?
Wherein I will give the old college try to extricating humanity — Yes, all of it. Including all manner of your deviants, miscreants, deplorables; even, Republicans. — from the we're-gonna-go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket road we're on in the prevailing zeitgeist with what looks like half the folks seeing it as all good and, the other, as all bad; and, vice versa.
The short form take is this. [Short by Wronski standards, that is.] We all see things according to our own lights. No? From our mental landscapes. Which, as you should know was not so much something that you were born with, but was constructed over time. A lot of it conditioned in by others and circumstances around us. Some we kept, some we rejected. Many of those choices were made with and when there was limited knowledge and experience. Yet, even after more learning and experiences we still cope with the often time tightly held outdated points of view. Prideful in them. Resisting to change. Even when the fact of it is there in front of us; like when you're sitting on the toilet, and imagining you're riding to a cesspool of molten lava in the center of hell. Well, excuse me for bringing in a personal anecdote. But, you get the point. As those Oh-Boy-We're-So-In-The-Moment Zen types would say, when you chop wood, chop wood. Or, in my example, when you're on the can, shit, or get off.
So, where the F am I going with this. Well, certainly not in that to-hell-in-a-handbasket. Here's the deal. How we see things is a product of our mental landscape. It's made up. Not to say it's not useful. Or, incorrect. That's so lower level. The point is to see that it is made up in the first place. It's a construct. Oh, you say, I'm right though. Well, isn't that part of the construct. Please permit me to blow your mind:
The world is as you see it. If you don't like what you see, change the prescription.
For those who may want to look into this any further, read on. Otherwise, you'll only become more confused, possibly doubling down on that dime your standing on in your 5 minute world.
Now that I'm talking to the willing reader. Read on. Or, wread on ...
Here's a perfect example of "level". Guy comes running into the emergency room at the hospital screaming, "I can't breathe!!! I can't breathe!!! I can't breathe!!!" Everyone other than him sees the obvious. Now, just how do you get it across to him that if he couldn't breathe ... well you know the rest of it.
Just like me pondering why people can come away with such differing views on seeing the same dern thing. How to get someone to notice that they're coming from another level than you, I don't know. Best to mind your own level.
I once lived in an ashram. At morning meditation sessions I would run in my head over and over every day whether I was enlightened, yet. One day I got the grace to see that I was running my head, given to that thought. My level shifted. I saw the workings of my mind. Left behind identifying with my mind. Also, saw that the concern about being enlightened is just another thought.
Now you may ask about me pondering why folks are the way they are. Well, that's a level thing too. I see that. But, it is a temptation, still. Light a candle. Still interested in the comings and goings in the world.
I have close relatives who are estranged from me. Seems I "did them wrong". I can take the blame; but the guilt, fuggedaboutit. Broken hearts are for assholes [per Mr. Frank Zappa]. I could spend eternity trying to make it up to them; like that would even work. It'll get resolved when, and if, they grock it that, history notwithstanding — never mind if the understanding at the time of the alleged historical insult was even clear and with all the facts in hand — that it's now just an idea reifying me into a story in their heads; sort of like being a fly sealed in Amber. I light a candle.
Forgiveness. Just what is that? For me, it's living into the realization that there is no harm done in the first place. [From The Course in Miracles: "Nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists."] Popular notions of forgiveness, however, seem to be about shoehorning the slings and arrows of misfortune into some manageable new alternative narrative. Which, to me, seems to be just sweeping it under the rug. I've told my estranged lovelies that any part of our heart we close for whatever reason is closed to those with whom we would want to share it wholeheartedly. To no avail. It's a level thing. I'll, as I said, practice being mindful of my own level. And, trust. Wholeheartedly.
Some "level" things:
Besides waking up to what's been right under our nose all along, the level thing is also to take a step back and see that how you see is a constructed thing. I meditate to do that. Do what you need to do for yourself. Though, I don't know of any other way than to meditate. There's plenty of wise authority on the merits of that. Inquire.
It's not to change or rearrange your mental landscape. No. No. No. It's to simply see it there in all its raw naked presence. Some call it "MINDFULNESS". Nice word. Being mindful of your mind. One of the side benefits besides how the practice clears the mental cobwebs, is in the discovery that you are not your mind. You know, that chatty little thing you hear going on 24/7/12/365? You do hear it, don't you?
This takes some doing. So, if you are so inclined, do it! And regularly. Sit down, be quiet, see what happens. Repeat. Watch this, it's all there:
I'm sure no one by now is not aware of the level of political discourse. Blame Game, someone called it. It seems to work, getting votes-wise. As for policy and action, not so much. We seem to have massed on two sides of a high and impenetrable wall, each thoroughly convinced that they're right, the other wrong. With arms' lengths of facts and figures to support those positions.
So I've been pondering mightily over how come things got so black and white? The overarching answer is that we live — rather choose to live — in a dualistic frame. If you be right, then there's got to be wrong to balance it out. Don't blame me, folks, that's the essence of the game. And, don't get me started on all those pollyanna toxic positivist positively giddy with their positivity [and often willing to share their grace with anyone — for a price]. Have you ever encountered the Junior League? What the world needs, yeah, another cheery blond.
Also, and more poignantly, I've been pondering how loved ones who have their very existence through you pretty much have nothing to do with you, won't hear it from you, and hold you in the lowest contempt. Who, even the lowliest of miscreants like me likes that situation? Another one is how I've even had a close relative said it very honestly and candidly, "Don't contact me ever again, because when you do I get very upset". In other words there's a narrative they hold in mind that reifies me and gets triggered with all the ornamented emotions and sensations associated with it when I show up.
Amazingly, they claim to have worked past it and come to forgiveness. Any attempt to set the record straight just comes off as an apologia pro vita sua. Further, attempting to set the record straight, knocking on their door, just makes them bolt it all the more against yours truly. Particularly frustrating don't you know when you've searched your conscience and motivations and are offering something only for their own good. Not that they have to accept it. But, that they won't even look at it. That's a puzzlement.
I don't think it's a unique situation. It's a human situation. We want the good, and push away the bad. But, just who made those labels and pasted them on this or that thing or other, we don't much look into that.
Big subject. I refer you to one top level source:
But, we should. Look into it. Not in the sense of sorting it out within the mix, but now we come to the level bit.
Taking a step to another level to look from another, and maybe, broader perspective. I've heard that when Columbus and his types first appeared on the horizon it was the shamans of the tribe who first saw them. Everyone could see, but then again there's vision. Maybe it's the same with those UFO's. Never seen one. Where's my shaman when I need him? Or, Rabbi?
You know how it is then when you’re attempting to get some point across and the other person just argues against it. Or doesn’t get it at all. Or just hears what they want to hear?
It may be a “Level Thing”.
I once had to deal with a fellow who was thoroughly plugged in and having a shit conniption over something or other. Just lost in all steam and raging reacting to something, and then running on about the pre-taped mental narrative triggered by the incident. I suggested he might take the opportunity to notice the “voice in your head”. “There’s no voice in my head!” he unhesitatingly snapped back. [Said the voice in his head.]
The level thing is about seeing from a broader perspective. Not necessarily a better perspective. That would just be base level thinking all over again — sorting out right from wrong, good from bad. Nothing necessarily wrong if that's your bag. Just to notice it's not the only game in town.
The next level is to see that there’s a process going on in the example I used which is focused on some dualistic distinction. The dance itself; not the music.
Or, say, in politics. For an example, the voice in my head brings up Nancy Pelosi. She’s the Democratic cheerleader for blaming anything and everything on the Republicans. Let’s not get into her frame; i.e., taking a side and arguing like I do on social media. Let’s step up to the next level ... and see that we’re mired in the blame game itself.
Once you notice that, you can tango on, or choose to take that broader view to come to some creative solutions.
Again, it’s not about a better point of view. Though you may find it has its advantages. Like you are feeding your infant. You don’t give them an explanation of what’s going on and why they should open up and take that spoonful. No. You shove the spoonful in the kid’s face and they get the message at that level.
So, I guess, the art of it is to know what level your dealing with. Reading the room. As always, it’s an easier thing to suss out the level in another; grocking our own, well, keep working on it.
So, to sum up, if’n you’re not getting your point across chances may be that it’s a level thing. How to get another to join you at the level from which you are communicating, that’s a challenge. It should at least come from some agreement that the other is willing to look at things from another point of view. If not, then fugeddaboutit. Horse to water kind of thing.
The conundrum of the level issue also may have some complications. Gaslighting. That’s when someone chooses not to get the point you are making, or even refuses to hear it. Often appearing to be staying in the discussion, but only zeroed in on their own emphasis.
How to know if you’re being “gaslighted”:
You’re trying to make a point and the other person on purpose doesn’t acknowledge it at all, or doesn’t understand. You have doubts and wonder if you are not saying it right. Also, maybe the other person doesn’t get it because it’s not something they want to hear, or even can’t hear.
It’s not gaslighting if the other person just doesn’t get it. But, the net effect is the same. You can confirm it’s gaslighting when you attempt to deal with the issue head on, and then get blamed and denigrated in return.
Recently on social media I got a heart emoticon back on a suggestion to a friend. That they do something. A heart emoticon came back. WTF is that supposed to mean. I inquired. The response was, "You're so pushy". Gaslighting? I think so. Pressed further, "I'll look at it". It happened to be a movie I suggested to watch. You don't "look" at a movie, you "watch" a movie. Gaslighting. For sure. I'm an old car salesmen. Trained in the art of saying nothing but sounding like in a potential customer's ear like it does [mean something]. Like, "Come on Down We're Having a Big Sale". Translate: Everything we have is for sale. Really, it gets that tricky. Of course, if you want the master class in that sort of rhetoric, just watch the pols and the news.
There’s also “ghosting”. You’re being “ghosted” when the person you are attempting to communicate with gets it but gives no response. You wonder whether they received your message, or there’s some hearing problem. It’s a fairly common thing with email communication. You send something and ... crickets. You don’t know if they got the message, or are choosing to ignore it, or don’t like it, or don’t have enough respect to acknowledge any of it. I’ve encountered this many times. When I followed up, it typically turns out that the other party just didn’t respond out of the habit of not doing that. I was schooled in giving response to things sent to me. It’s like if you’re in some serious situation and you ask somebody to do something that is critical to more forward. They give no response. So, did they hear you? Or are they just too thick and obstinate to bother. When the chips are down, “Roger that” is the rule. And, when the chips are really down, better have them reiterate what it is that you requested. We don’t always hear the comma in the sentence.
Like in that James Bond movie:
The acid test is to inquire further. No response again. Bingo! You’re being ignored.
In either case, watch out for any thrown tendency to react with self doubt, guilt, frustration. On your part.
Not everyone is your customer anyway. Sometimes even those you would think would stick with you through thick and thin. Karma ... it can be a bitch. Clean your plate. Do you have any other choice?
Which reminds me of an incident with my very young children. At dinner, one pipes up, "I don't like this!" The younger one sees that and joins in, "Yeah, me neither!" Like a lean Zen master, my lightning quick response: "Who said you have to like it?" Never a complaint ever again.
I've been having lively and sometimes intense politics centered conversations on the social media. To some it looks like I'm "on the fence". As in, not for one side or the other. With the clear implication that I am remiss for not jumping off, committing.
There's the old put down: Are you on the ball? "Of course," you answer. "Then bounce off and kiss my ass!" And, while I'm at it, how about this one? "How many wrinkles in a bull's ass? Bend over and I'll count."
Let's get back on track. Re: On the Fence. But, rather to be more accurate, it's I've been "put" on that fence.
Politically I look at policies and people. Then I vote. I'm not so bonded to any one party or philosophy that I hold everybody who doesn't see it my way as wrong. Or that I have to vote my side like some stalwart, blind eyed true believer no matter what. Much less that the way I see it is the only way to see it; or, the correct way to see. I used to live in that paradigm; then I woke up. It smacked me square in the face that I was making it up; how I saw things was through a lens of my own design. Amazing Grace! As you might expect, everything changed. For the better. But for the one's I was compelled to leave behind — or, so it appeared to them — it was for the worse; they took it so, anyway. [Still an issue yet to be resolved BTW. Light a candle.]
It appears that the level things are at currently requires you to be either for the one side or, for the other. Of course I'm referring to the so called left side, Democrats; and the right side, Republicans. But, not on the fence. Well, when you try to sort out anything in a dualistic frame, it follows there has to be this ... or that. Ask any Rabbi. Fences are for the birds. But, they must know something; after all, they can fly. Read that as "can rise above it all".
Let's not go into that hopeless and endless quagmire of who's right and who's wrong. From either side it looks right where you stand, and wrong where we see the others standing. Or, rather, we think we see them standing. So much so that when you know in your very bones you are right it's easy to see the opposing others as stone stupid and. more probably. Just plain evil.
Let me interject a sobering reality. It's not what you think! If you take that I'm out to make you wrong. Wrong! It's not about what I think either. It's about getting that it's all in your head. Thinking. No problem with that. But, just to notice that voice in your head ... you do hear that voice in your head? Well, it's not you!
When you're right, it's only logical other views are wrong. On the fence? You're also wrong there. Just for being on the fence. And, probably it means you're for the other side, but don't want to admit it. Admit it! Even one of my so called loved ones ventured that I had lost my mental acuity for not being in agreement. Wow! When you're right, you're right. No?
I've been known to have been critical of the Democratic side. Again, the details of it are not salient to this commentary. What's relevant is how 1. If you criticize one side, ergo you have to be a supporter of the other. And, 2. Not taking a side is not acceptable. Get it. That's how you get on that fence. And, 3. not taking the right side, well that's just plain wrong.
So, I'm wondering, where does it say you have to take sides?
The thing I am trying to point out is not which side is right or wrong. It's the next level point: To see that regardless of where you stand, you have taken a stand. Just that. Full stop. It's the stand itself that's the thing. Again, who said you have to take a stand? It's the stand itself that keeps you in place. Stuck? Dare I suggest that?
It's about stepping out of the tar baby mess of sorting out right from wrong. Nothing wrong in doing that. The error of it is not seeing that it's just a mental box; howsoever important to grapple with, but just a box. Seeing the fact of it is transformative. Maybe even so that the problems one is attempting to sort out become clearer with new options from that next level perspective. And, that's not a higher, more superior point of view. Think of the birds; they rise higher, they're not the better for it. Well, maybe better in being able to do that. You get the point. Enough.
To reiterate: it's not about who's right and who's wrong. It's about seeing that discussion itself as the dance that it is. Dance to your hearts content. Just, let the music stop and look around at all the other partners waiting patiently around the dance floor.
Kapeesh?
Which brings up another rather disconcerting point. Just when did a large swath of the population get so right that any opposition is by definition wrong? So right, whatever the so called opposition may have to contribute is not even given a look. If you need an example, Trump. Everything he did as Prez was at least 100% wrong. And, his supporters too. See what I mean? [If you're a dem of a certain conditioned mindset, you probably don't get the point. It's just a logical, obvious fact to you. No?]
Conditioned? Me? Never! Never mind the incessant 24/7/12/365 full on court press finding fault in any and everthingy 45 did. That certainly didn't creep in under my radar! We can relax now that we have the 46 who comes marked for sainthood checking all the boxes central casting looks for in its leading men. Make Jimmy Stewart look like a hobo.
I've attempted, in vain, to suggest when you're on the left, and so stone certain of the rectitude of your position, in fact it circles around and you're not only right, but on the right. A few steps farther if you have the numbers on your side and you get to lord it over all those erring miscreants. Deplorables. How that's not authoritarian I don't know. Did any authoritarians consider themselves to be such, but only doing nothing other than God's will?
The thing is it seems some have become so conditioned to the propaganda of their allegianced side to even suggest there might be another way of looking at things is itself not an option. No shadow of doubt.
Alas, the original sin of man ... pride. Oh, and excuse me, for using the white supremacist, sexist, old school term, "man". What would you call it?
Like the story about a fellow with a broken watch strolling around one Sunday in a Swiss town. He sees a shop with a clock in the window and goes in to see if he can get the watch repaired. "Sorry sir. We don't repair watches. Point of fact, I'm a Mohel performing the ceremonial circumcision in the Jewish tradition." "But, you have a clock in the window!?" "What would you put in the window?"
Having said that ... it's probably mainly an exercise for me in getting my thoughts on paper. Who will hear it? Who's open to hearing it? You can't pour water into a jar that's turned upside down. The upside is that most jars don't last; they break. Freeing the space inside, don't you know.
