The illusion of negativity.
So, it can not be ignored, 10 years on and, as they are saying, everything and nothing has changed. But nothing that was the intention of the terrorists has occurred, in other words western democracy, and capitalism still remains. (Despite the best efforts of greedy hedge fund indulgers & estate agents.)
The ramifications of 9/11 are there to be seen in Adam Curtis’ “The Power of Nightmares” Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” and Rob Newman’s “Caliban to Taliban ” and “History of Oil”. As well as the more inane preventative and administrative results at airports etc, all sorts, but none of it was the objective of the terrorists.
If the objective of the attack was to shake us out of our malaise, then looking at the images from that day, perhaps they succeeded. And the audacity of the attacks remains highly impactful. But like a healing scab or the ripples on a pond returning to stillness, time does heal all. Perhaps this process is just beginning.
But the desperation of this act of violence as method to enforce change or submission seems deluded. This is simply not how things work. Successful change is very rarely sudden and the more sudden it is, often the harder it is to sustain. It’s much like a crash diet; it doesn’t work. Of coarse we are all guilty of looking for sudden, quick, maybe even violent solutions to out problems. I think the idea of romantic love is this, thinking that someone else is the solution to your problems. That we can change ourselves so easily is wishful thinking.
It seems ironic and yet entirely apt and thus doubly ironic, that so much of “all this” was tied up with religion. Religion in its true and rightful sense should be a mindful set of rituals and habits, Reflection, introspection and thoughtfulness, it is a way of being, a path, not a dogma. In truth it offers no answers, it’s not about what anyone else should do but how you interact with the world, and accept what you encounter in life.
So no external event can affect it, so an act of violence is futile. This is what Socrates and Jesus teach us.
Rather than acts of violence what is required to change us is enlightenment, and even that suggests to quick a fix. Perhaps Habit then? Or, growth.
Learn: You can learn something in theory with out having experienced it first hand (a 2nd hand memory or insight) but a fact may be forgotten.
Experience: You can experience something first hand without necessarily understanding (at the time) or gaining insight (at the time) thus you may repeat your mistakes.
Growth: You can not grow with out, both, learning and experiencing, in-fact you are always experiencing and learning, and growing. Growing is change plus memory. Event plus insight. It is achieved by simply letting things in, which is also the hardest thing to do.
Is the task to retain the useful and constructive, and forget the useless and negative and replace it with positive things? No, nothing is useless; there are things which you may not have realised an outlet for, a focus and energy which is coming out in other less structured or even destructive ways. Everything in you is retained, it can not be erased, you can only add to it and utilise it to your best ability. This is self realisation. To use your self towards the most balanced ends.
"The unexamined life is not worth living." – Socrates- 469 BC–399 BC
It’s funny how the sports stars- and the men in suits and mostly also formula one drivers, (who are neither and both), it’s funny how they always point towards, dedication, hard-work, perseverance etc as being the cornerstone of there success, when surely, experience, sound judgement, timing, patience, accurate perception, a degree of perspective and oversight and insight, and self awareness, the ability to relate are all equally important.
Utilising your energy is good but it must be directed in the right way in order to be most fruitful.
More dangerously these suit wearers are knowingly or otherwise, engaging in a myth that says, -if you are not where you want to be it is because you are not driving hard enough, you are lazy. When, in fact it may be because you are still learning and still growing. Their out look follows an inaccurate model, life is not a ladder to rush up as high as possible so you can crap on the heads of those below, if that is the model you prescribe to then surely all the ladders would quickly become un-climbable caked in slippery shit. And who wants to end up the winner stranded at the top of a ladder on your own, above a pool of shit? No. Life spreads like ink on blotting paper, and there are a thousand more shades of colour than you first thought.
None of this must be confused with happiness. Happiness is a fleeting nothingness, almost a sham. I believe people who are obsessed with other people smiling- “cheer up” etc, are so, because they are insecure, they see a frown in their presence as disapproval of them specifically. When in-fact more often it is unrelated to them. Or perhaps they flip it slightly and feel that because someone is in there presence then they should be happy by consequence of that fact, because they are sooo great etc, and thus un-ignorable.
This cheeriness is a short term fix, retail therapy, a crash diet, an act of violence, everything on the pages of ok magazine, it doesn’t work.
There is nothing I need that I do not already have, there is nothing that anyone else has that deprives me of what I can achieve.
There is nothing in the universe which is not natural, thus the term nature is redundant, QED nature does not exist.
My sub pious promulgating has probably been very boring to read, that is because it is much more exciting to rally around the quick fix, and the violent act.
So just for you Ooo.... Fisting.
