Who Am I?

I am that instrument, finely tuned, which receives signals, turns 

those into a feeling, which feeling then creates something of 

beauty and use for all around me- a phenomenon I witness in 

awe. At my best as an instrument in service to my maker and 

one who registers awe at the experience of being just that.

                                                                        

                                                                         -Jon Harvey Smith,
for Charly

Gotta Eat and Live

(or, A Monetized Way of Life)

So, people gotta eat and live. Is that an excuse? What is it an excuse for? Is its meaning that we cannot expect to eat if we are honest and engaged in some noble work we love? How often has the story been repeated of the young person who confides in his parents his heart's desire to be an artist only to have his heart stomped upon and crushed into goo before his eyes? To be ridiculed as a childish goofball by someone he admires and loves? How does it feel? When done with special vigor is it not obvious the parent is imitating his own parent? And is it not his, the parent's, stored up pain that is being unloaded on the child?

So, people gotta eat and live. If asked, Do you believe in God? Would your answer be in the affirmative? It is for most people and yet few of them do any work that is satisfying to the soul. And nearly all would crush such romantic notions from their children's thinking instantly upon its discovery. Almost none would accept a plan by their offspring that did not include financial security. So, what is a God for? In my upbringing it was primarily offered as a source of forgiveness for the sins which derive from my low base nature. (Which God is given credit for creating in the first place) Seems, primarily, it is a useless thing held out to the neighbors as evidence I am to be trusted. (Since a scheme has been presented for forgiveness one need not seriously consider one's greed, meanness, cruelty, fear, anger, etc. However even a young child will surely wonder occasionally whether his sins are not being produced by the sins of his father. After all, the kid knows he is not, at heart, a base critter, but an enormously creative spirit.) And yet, nobody has met a banker who will lend you money because you are religious or will swear you know God. What is it the banker knows? Knows just how afraid you are of insecurity. The more you are, the more he will lend. Ironic. (So, fearful cowards gain most from a monetized way of life.)

Some people actually crave and adore insecurity for it brings them closer to their God. People gotta eat and live.

You Better Know You Cannot Escape It

Truth is what it is we are locked inside each others arms

if we let one brother fall we are down there with

them all

You better start to believe it

then you better buy into it

you don't have to like it

but you cannot escape it

we are locked inside each others arms

if we let one brother fall we are down there with

them all

you thought you could escape it

DOOR

1 For a long time there were people who depended on God's way.

Then came a strange people who depended on a store.

2 These blind people carried powerful rifles and other things of war

assembled in factories and sold by the store.

The blind ones could see not that the store owned them

and all they once were proud to stand for

were lost to them as beggars who with shrunken soul

knew not life nor what it is for but had weapons of war and the things in a store and a plan which they misrepresented as part of a method they called strategy along with a slogan tell them what you have to tell even if it be untruth and tell nothing more. And never feel inwardly bound by what you have told before. And, sadly, the people of God's way kept not their wits about them that would have warned them to stay away and not trade with these ones who belonged to a store.

3 And no one saw that the art of the blind was also without vision and that it was an art that said as much and it continues to this day to be that same way filled with sorrow and pain and regret and they sing it and dance it and write of it and make films around it and worship most strongly through the things from the store which by now does not have to be a material place staffed by people at all but an imaginary store reached by clicking and robots bring the things from the lifeless store to my door.

4 This is a heartless, sterile way to live I tell you. I yearn to return to the way it was before. My heart tells me to sit with the yearning and let it build to a roar and when it forces a shout leap up and roar! And look for a yet unfound door. And, by Golly, remember where to find what you never lost from the road of before and this time hold tight as a human to the treasure of the heart like your ancestors of forgotten lore written in a forgotten language, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door.

Nobody Else Can Do It You For*

A hint: seek and read as if your life depends upon it Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

A Look

I have begun a book. It is entitled Look Homeward, Angel written by someone named Thomas Wolfe who died quite young, leaving some books behind for us. It has taken me a week to read the first 60 pages of the novel. I am no expert, just a human being alive enjoying this moment I write. I am a poor writer, I know that. The only thing I can say is that the subject I write about is great. In that sense and that sense only am I a great writer like someone who writes about horses might be called a horse writer.

I found Mr. Wolfe's amazing contribution to us in the library of a tiny school in a mountain village in the cloud forest of Costa Rica where I am a visitor. Having read so little of it you may wonder why I am already writing its praises. I just had to. I have a feeling I have little chance of finishing it but am eager to attempt that.

This unusual, to say the least, book is opening me to a more genuine understanding of what it means to be human, as we call it. It moved me already to speak out what I have felt. Should it be there is no time to waste is there no time to use? Moments are not subject to the drama of waste, having no consequences. Time, it is said, can be used or wasted. But, as yet, I have not found anyone who is living or has lived who can answer what it can be used for. Has it any legitimate purpose? Anyone who could, would certainly have an advantage over me.

The Wolfe book is telling me indirectly, as novels are written to do, that at the same time a family of people are experiencing all manner of trials and tribulations just as the consequences of birth, something else is happening to them that is of another nature entirely. It is apparent to all that life is worth living whenever the second thing I alluded to is apparent, and only then. The other experience, the one with consequences, seems to dominate us, even the ones of us believed to be more holy than the bulk of the population. This fact makes everyone wonder why they are even alive.

It is about time we are so concerned. A false clock is attempting to control us. It knows not of the moment. Now is a synonym for contentment, absolute, with no worry- for there are no consequences to it. Rivers flow, flowers bloom, trees give shade to all regardless of age or gender or name or credentials or criminal record. There is nothing to do but savor. This now thing happens to the family in the novel who are just riddled with flaws and unable to understand life at all. It seems to happen once in awhile but when it is happening there is no concept of time so it can raise the question,”Was that reality or is this reality? They all experience admiration for each other although they clearly should not whenever consequences are considered to be relevant. The very moment the world of consequences occurs to any of them they harm one of the others, every time, as if they have no choice. In short, these monsters are capable of greatness.

As I read the novel I find myself going along with the author's unstated (so far) belief these people are to be admired for their courage if nothing else. Much as one might have to admire, if only a little bit, someone who actually plays Russian Roulette with a pistol and a single bullet. It is heavy for me to write this down but somehow feels necessary. Am I admirable in such a way?

My own father are these people and I became him. (This I feel is a paragraph.)

I Am

I am a Buddhist but not distracted by the word Buddhist

without any oath, without robes, and without the teachings of the Buddha

and I am a Christian but not distracted by the word Christian

without any creed, without candles or crosses, and without the teachings of Christ

I am a Jew without distractions of any sort

I am a Hindu without distractions of any sort

I am a Muslim without distractions of any sort

I am as I am and as I am I can see the truth inborn same as anyone sees

and all truth is my religion without distractions of any sort

and that frees me in a certainty

truth needs no advocate

it's obvious to me

Truth stands so tall it cannot oversee

a cowardly, pushy truth is no truth to me

Let me tell you what I have been shown

If I attach myself to a word I must say, I shall believe, and allow no distraction!

But permitting no distraction is the greatest distraction of them all

It has been mentioned by religious people forever as the Last Distraction

But it is the First Distraction!

Who has forgotten all words?

Who has forgotten even silence?

I want to talk to that person

What Is A Society, Really?

What is a society, really, in simple understandable terms?

It has many aspects but the moment any one of them is all of them can be understood. Let's look at one. Consider a professional football team. It is actually a corporation, not a team at all. The team is owned and controlled. The main purpose of the corporation is to make money from its ownership of the rights to field a team in competition against other teams who operate under the rules made by an association of all the owner-corporations in a sports league. Each corporation owning such rights owns a team of athletes, a stadium, the exclusive rights to the team's logo so as to merchandise all types of products for sale to fans of the team, most of which remain throughout their lives completely ignorant of any of these arrangements and prefer that condition to reality so they can actually fall into a thinking pattern which attaches to a created group think, psychologically designed, to hypnotize them and their friends and loved ones into a trance that has them feeling strong loyalties to a completely imaginary system. No corporation of record, and they have no existence otherwise (unlike you and me), none of them bleed, feel pain or give a damn about us. 

Johnny Cash sang a song dealing with drug addiction the horrors of which he had experienced personally and from which he was able to find freedom. A simple opening line of the song is: “I hurt myself today”. What is described above in discussion of one aspect of an organized society which of itself is only a minor part of a huge web wrought out of nothing, a figment, called a nation is equally addictive and more disgraceful by far. The number of casualties and atrocities during all the wars waged over the centuries is incalculably enormous. In fact, wars are fought by young boys who are drugged to enable them to kill like maniacs and endure its horror.

What have we become?

The goal or driving force behind the sports team is to win the Super Bowl and become a dynasty. The goal of a society is to become an Empire. Most of its citizens will remain fans. However many fans will become bored and drop out of the scene to be labeled as losers by owners and fans. Only a small proportion of its citizens will own one or more of its teams. They run the show. Do we honestly believe that without a society organized in such a way, you and I would be too inept or stupid to share the Earth in a happy, fulfilling way? One thing we do know by now, though, is the way we are going about it has totally failed billions of us. The key thing to understand is simple: the creation of an organized society automatically and with absolute certainty creates a drive to build an empire. This means all but a relative few will be dragged headlong into an abyss reeking havoc along the way.

Now for some good news. The Maker created the Universe to be friendly to all who will receive its warmth as a gift. Arrogance is the true enemy of people. Humility opens a door you do not know exists if you but give it a chance. There is another way to live that is fulfilling. Trust in the giant who you are to show you day by day. It is as sure as the tides and the Sun and the Moon and gravity and breath there is a society afoot that was not organized by the mind of man. It does not print money and does not build jails and never argues.

We humans are here to care for each other in the face of cold, heartless societies. We alone have hearts.