reflections on the times

It is of no use continuing to merely assert and regurgitate the observations witnessed in times of chaos. I wish to know why they manifest themselves in this way or that. Repeatedly hurtling accusations and projections at each other gets us no where, it is only when we can begin to have genuine conversation, meeting people perhaps in areas we ourselves would not alone travel, that we may evolve past, or through, our differences. If we are incapable of putting aside our own pride even momentarily in order to attempt an understanding of why someone behaves or responds in a particular way, we will remain exactly as we are and have been for too long. There comes a point where it is simply no longer about good and evil, political positions, or even moralistic and religious arguments. I want to know what operating system within someone is guiding them to their emotional reactions. Not so as to place it in front of a jury and condemn them, but to better understand where we as a collective consciousness currently stand and therefore pointing us to the most effective next steps in our evolution towards a more unified and clear sighted species.

So why is it that say an overwhelmingly large group of people, one that i have witnessed both within my personal life and on the social stage, respond to the crime against Charlie Kirk with such indignation and a truly deeply felt rage and grief? I pose this question not because i disagree with reaction, if anything it serves as a sort of positive marker for our current capacity of remaining in touch with our humanity, i ask because it seems in such stark opposition to the general response to what are the now daily available horrors happening everywhere. So what is it specifically about this that breaks through to someone’s empathy? Is it patriotism? Is it perhaps easier for the psyche to manage something on this scale rather than say, genocide? Can we more readily fathom political assassination, seeing as it fits neatly within a preconceived box regardless of your opinion of it, than begin to grapple with the harsh reality of children murdering children. Have we reached a point where the acts being committed all around us are so atrocious most people are simply incapable of reconciling themselves to truly acknowledging them, because if they do what does that say about them? Whether we like it or not, we are all made up of the same stuff, so whatever force is acting upon another lives somewhere within you too, actualized or no. And that scares the shit out of someone, understandably. So instead of speaking up we turn our faces from it. I think our clue to moving forward lies somewhere in this understanding.

Though suppose none of this is true, maybe i cling too closely to a naive perspective of people. Could it be that there is truly just that level of disdain in someone for anyone who does not look like you? There are those who now virtuously preach their condemnation of striking someone down over difference of opinion, but does that sentiment only apply when the opinion comfortably aligns with yours? This seems plausible enough, disappointing as it is, and has plenty of evidence supporting it within the history of this nation. I myself, unfortunately, find that there is a sort of numb detachment which has seeped into my vision, accosted as we are each day with new reports of barbaric atrocities: the digitized sight of bombs tearing mother from baby, limb from torso, or the also numb child who robotically stands before camera crew and recounts the way his prepubescent schoolmate threw himself as human shield before the rifle, maybe its the exploitation of Africans in mines, or the corporate greed, or the sex trafficking, or the never ended headlines about the pedophiles who control it all. Who knows what it is that finally sent me over the edge but it is because of these things and plenty more that i feel no sudden spark of rage or despair, because it is always there, the grief. Once i let those first waves in they never stopped coming, and somewhere along the way i learned to live with them as constants. So no, i feel no need to cry out for Kirks murder, but not because i seek justice or feel hate for him in my heart despite all he may have said and been. But because there is absolutely no differentiation between him and the man somewhere across the sea facing the same fate, it matters not that he was Conservative or Christian or White or Respected or Speaking Up or a Psyop. I add another drop into the ocean of grief that lives always in me. I weakly reach for the empathy i know i have even though i struggle and it has been worn to pieces. I try to override my desensitized nervous system and pile this tragedy to the mound of bodies that resides in the back of my mind.

The age old good and evil problem we’ve faced off with for millennia has reached, id argue, its most tense, like two magnetic poles coming closer and closer together creating this space of highly charged, highly dense energy between them. We live somewhere in there, and we’re watching the resulting consequences play out in real time. We have for so long, specifically in western cultures and religions, denied the existence of the opposite pole. We have gone in reckless external pursuit of all things good and bright, foregoing the very necessary acknowledgment of its other half, the result being a very fragmented population completely out of touch with the true nature of our souls and the universe at large. The slightly ironic reality of suppressing our shadowy sides is that it produces an exaggerated manifestation of this ‘evil’ in our external fields. We are creating the very thing we fear by act of hiding from it. In turn becoming the thing we fear, the thing we so scrupulously fight. The solution? Look into the mirrors all around you until you no longer squirm. And then stay some more.

I believe that the human intrinsically desires to be good and to love and be loved, and yet on this pursuit we inevitably become critically wounded by what we perceive to be attacks on this need of ours, until we eventually identify with these wounds and their most reasonable narratives, thus acting out acts of terror on both the global and personal scale in defense of them. But also just because we desire to a be a thing does not make us so. This is made obvious by hate crimes and violence. So what do we do? Where does one go from here? How do we become realigned to the original wishes we had before the world got to us? It is one thing to speak philosophically and say things like ‘we must face our shadows!’ And ‘love thy neighbor!’, yet it is altogether another thing to actualize these understandings into our very bones, to tear down the belief systems we’ve been given and rewrite the narrative of our choosing. Its time for radical responsibility and devastating levels of compassion, not continuing to fall in the same old traps of victimization, avoidance, and blame. The world is so unbearably loud right now it feels almost impossible to step one foot inside of it without being bombarded with war mongering and polarizing propaganda on all levels, and it feels even harder to maintain any level of neutrality or empathy, so readily available is the hate train to jump on whichever direction you choose to go. When you feel your emotions to be hijacked take a step back and ask yourself how it is you arrived there. Do i actually believe these things they’re telling me? I do not think we give ourselves nearly enough credit for the amount of forgiveness we are capable of. It is an active effort and is not always immediately available, but you might just surprise yourself with how far it may take you once you decide you’re willing to go.

This moment in time seems to be asking of me simply to observe. I’m aware some may view that as an easy out or bypassing dressed up in righteousness, but i can assure you it is quite actually the hardest thing to do. To see it all and hold it all, and without the urge to just board up my heart in the process, but to instead use it to deepen this ability of mine to feel and know. Learn what it feels like to calmly stand amidst the deafening magnetic force and be unmoved by it, study how it behaves in times of intensity. To give people the appropriate space to exist in their current experience of reality, regardless of it agreeing with mine. To resist the temptation to hand over my power, my energy, my emotions to the ever hungry fear mongering machine and know that in itself is one of the most revolutionary things i can do in this moment. Every time you choose love instead of hate it echoes out into the cosmos like a sort of smoke signal.

I’ve strayed quite a distance from my initial questionings, though i suppose that is the nature of these things. There is no simple or satisfactory response. For the most part, in a way, i do understand the working mechanisms behind peoples behavior, if only because it follows patterns that anyone is capable of picking up on if you pay close enough attention. I am aware that i began by saying it is no longer about good and evil, then proceeded to go into a discussion of the nature of good and evil. I’m not sure exactly what that means, other than the fact that i tend to often find myself tangled in paradox— which i welcome. Perhaps by claiming the need to go beyond something you are actually just pointing out the direction through which to go to get there. For we cannot evolve beyond confines until we have thoroughly experienced and comprehended them, and maybe not even then, who is to say if we will ever move beyond this story. Yet i do believe in a need to transcend our over identification with the polarities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are no longer living within their dance, because without that what would be left?