Drunken rant #395: I would like to post it in the General Forum, but fuck it.
Some of you idealists (myself included) consistently dream of moving away, isolating yourself, perhaps only as far as Europe, or maybe as far as Bora Bora.
My impression of the motives we have for doing such a thing is generally this. You feel frustrated. For whatever reason, you are certain that something disfunctional built into the fabric of the society in which you live is causing you sadness perhaps, or pain or anger. You recognize that it is not easily fixable, and you recognize further, that many don't empathize, let alone understand your awareness of the disfunction.
So you tell yourself that going away will help. You'll escape the machine. Maybe you've already been to that magical place that will finally set your mind at ease, and you are certain there is hope for life there.
This is where I wake you up and wipe the smile off your face.
The sickness you feel in this life, feeding on your hope, will follow you everywhere. Make no mistake. The sickness, my delusional friend, is only an ephemeral fantasy; not at all a feature of society that might be brushed off by a geographical translation a few degrees latitude or longitude. The sickness, of course, is inisde of you.
What you feel, is brought on by the awareness of a feature of your biological self. This feature of our biological selves merely manifests itself as "society" or "economy" or "culture" and what not. Certain manifestations may even prosper (consider the value system in Capitalism), but I am telling you, with certainty, that it is only a manifestation of a biological feature that exists in humans, everywhere.
Go ahead, move to a small key off the coast of Honduras. It will follow you there, I am certain of this.
The sickness is, ironically, the evolutionary force that has given us the power to command other manifestations of its existence; all animals are a manifestation of the sickness. The sickness, completely blind, yet guiding all life, has produced a masterpiece, of which you and I are living testaments to its accidental genius; all life is enslaved to the sickness, of which you and I, my friend, are quite possibly exceptions...
A consequence of this genius was the gift of consciousness and you and I are now faced with a choice: to continue to obey the Sickness and follow its viral path, or encounter it, as I am now, and understand it. Call it what you will; self-awareness, consciousness, soul. Like a child of light born into a world of only dark, consciousness gives us choice.
This choice is not understood.
The Sickness is not understood.
Without awareness of the Sickness, we are enslaved to it.
It is clear, that we are not collectively prepared to face its strength or contradict its will. It is clear, that we would much prefer to live in guilty, animalistic symbiosis with it. Submit to its virulent ways. And allow its manifestations to propagate on a scale like we have never seen.
So if you find your Island of Happiness, expect things to change. You can't run from it until you know what it is you're running from. And expect it to find you there, soon enough, the coward you are for running away from humanity's greatest adversary.
What would be far more honourable, I think, would be to stay. And share this new-found awareness with others, so that they could understand their own sickness; such knowledge is the key to abating the Sickness and enabling the next revolution: the Revolution of Consciousness.
Some of you idealists (myself included) consistently dream of moving away, isolating yourself, perhaps only as far as Europe, or maybe as far as Bora Bora.
My impression of the motives we have for doing such a thing is generally this. You feel frustrated. For whatever reason, you are certain that something disfunctional built into the fabric of the society in which you live is causing you sadness perhaps, or pain or anger. You recognize that it is not easily fixable, and you recognize further, that many don't empathize, let alone understand your awareness of the disfunction.
So you tell yourself that going away will help. You'll escape the machine. Maybe you've already been to that magical place that will finally set your mind at ease, and you are certain there is hope for life there.
This is where I wake you up and wipe the smile off your face.
The sickness you feel in this life, feeding on your hope, will follow you everywhere. Make no mistake. The sickness, my delusional friend, is only an ephemeral fantasy; not at all a feature of society that might be brushed off by a geographical translation a few degrees latitude or longitude. The sickness, of course, is inisde of you.
What you feel, is brought on by the awareness of a feature of your biological self. This feature of our biological selves merely manifests itself as "society" or "economy" or "culture" and what not. Certain manifestations may even prosper (consider the value system in Capitalism), but I am telling you, with certainty, that it is only a manifestation of a biological feature that exists in humans, everywhere.
Go ahead, move to a small key off the coast of Honduras. It will follow you there, I am certain of this.
The sickness is, ironically, the evolutionary force that has given us the power to command other manifestations of its existence; all animals are a manifestation of the sickness. The sickness, completely blind, yet guiding all life, has produced a masterpiece, of which you and I are living testaments to its accidental genius; all life is enslaved to the sickness, of which you and I, my friend, are quite possibly exceptions...
A consequence of this genius was the gift of consciousness and you and I are now faced with a choice: to continue to obey the Sickness and follow its viral path, or encounter it, as I am now, and understand it. Call it what you will; self-awareness, consciousness, soul. Like a child of light born into a world of only dark, consciousness gives us choice.
This choice is not understood.
The Sickness is not understood.
Without awareness of the Sickness, we are enslaved to it.
It is clear, that we are not collectively prepared to face its strength or contradict its will. It is clear, that we would much prefer to live in guilty, animalistic symbiosis with it. Submit to its virulent ways. And allow its manifestations to propagate on a scale like we have never seen.
So if you find your Island of Happiness, expect things to change. You can't run from it until you know what it is you're running from. And expect it to find you there, soon enough, the coward you are for running away from humanity's greatest adversary.
What would be far more honourable, I think, would be to stay. And share this new-found awareness with others, so that they could understand their own sickness; such knowledge is the key to abating the Sickness and enabling the next revolution: the Revolution of Consciousness.
