Mark Gowan's Blog, page 8

The Forest for the Trees

“For every palace that I see rising in the capital, I seem to see a whole rural district laid to waste.” -Rousseau, The Social Contract

While there is a beautiful world “out there” there are people in it that are not so good. It is these people that we meet that seem ready with easy answers. They seem to be blind to the beauty in the world, only seeing it as a resource, a thing to use.

They come in many forms: rich and poor, educated and ignorant, friend and enemy. They intentionally or unintentionally argue that they have the answers to your worries, to your concerns, and will sell you answers that are opposed to Truth.

Free yourself from this riff-raff and the traps that they set forth. Turn away and remember that the world is not “out there” but everywhere, and is a beautiful place. Look beyond the lights and the cement and the merchants. Look out beyond the horizon and to the trees in the distance.

The Trouble With People

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

“When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent” -Isaac Asimov

A fact is a fact. But it is important to remember that it is the process that makes a fact a fact. The process, the coming to, the fruition, the inference, warrant and evidence is what matters. The process matters because it builds the argument, the act of strength rather than the illusion. It is the process that makes us human, that makes us people rather than simply apes that stand upright and bellow emptily.

To be a person, to consider one’s self a person is to understand the process that it takes to be a person, to differentiate one’s self from those that simply accept. That predisposition to be a part, to be accepted, to be liked, to be the same, to circumvent the all-important process is the ultimate failure of us as people.

The trouble with people is that we are people without a process. We carry our insouciance with pride and relish the feeling that it gives us. We arrogantly believe what isn’t true, and certainly refuse to believe what is true. We haughtily wave our flags and flagrantly dismiss the one thing that makes us civil: the process to become intelligent.

Prejudice

Prejudice is an emotional commitment to ignorance – Nathan Rutstein

We all succumb to prejudice.  It is in our genetic makeup.  It follows us around like a stink that just won’t go away.  We don’t notice it because it is always around.  We breath it in and call it fresh.

It doesn’t take much to bring out the flowery stench, at least in our own minds; in the secret recesses of thought that come over us when we least expect it, when we “notice”.

We are all bigots to a certain degree.  We have to live with it even though we try not to.  Some have simply succumbed to the contradiction of thought that rolls through their minds.  Others dismiss it as impossibility while unfurling their national pride.

But in order to do those things they have to dismiss the fact that they have an “emotional commitment to ignorance.”  But of course, such people don’t think that way, if they think at all.

They simply know they are better.  They know that they are above the fray.  They are simply prejudiced.

This Happened

“You know those protesters are being paid by somebody.”
“Which protesters?’
“Those up in Wisconsin and Portland.”
“Oh, so you are referring to the black protesters regarding the police violence and stuff.”
“Well, they are being paid.  There’s no way they can afford those hotels they stay in.  They don’t work.”
“You don’t know anything about those people.  You are making unwarranted assumptions, and my guess is that you are trying to blame the ‘left’ or ‘Democrats’.  I don’t care, but I think that’s probably what you’re doing.”
“I know what I see.  And yes, it’s probably the liberal communists.”
“They’re what?!”
“They’re communists.”
“Your need to stop watching so much Fox News and get your facts straight.  I’ll bet you don’t even know what communism is.”
“Of course, I DO know what it is.”
“Then what is it?  Define it.”
“I don’t have to do any such thing.”
“You don’t know what it is.  You’re not really even making an argument.  You’re just making unwarranted claims.”

“That’s just your opinion.  AND I know what communism is.”
“Well some of this is my opinion, but  I haven’t made any claims, and I’m asking you to back up what your saying.  I’m just asking for a logical argument.  We have to define terms if we’re going to have this discussion.”
“Your just trying pull  intellectual, elitist tricks.”
“No.  I’m just trying to have a logical argument.  And you won’t define your terms.  We have to be on the same page if we’re to have this discussion.  And don’t get mad.  You started this.”
“No, you’re just trying to make me feel foolish.  I know what logic is, and I’m being logical.”
“Now why would I do that?  I’m not.  I’m just not going to get in a pissing match about opinions.  But I don’t believe you know what logic is.  If you do, define it.”
“I don’t have to.  You define it.”
“I’m not the one making all these claims and I won’t define it for you.”
“You think I’m ignorant.”
“You are ignorant.  But, so am I about a lot of things.  There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“And I don’t watch that much Fox News.  I get a lot of my news from Epoch News.”

“I don’t know them.

“See.  You don’t know everything.”

“I never said I did.”

If You can…

Temper yourself so that you don’t always search for the easiest, but rather the best.

Learn to rise above ignorance, short-sightedness, entitlement, and the acceptance that will inevitably surround you.

Push yourself to learn, to be better, not necessarily the best and not necessarily everything.

Choose wisely and have fun! Understand that happiness is fleeting and that to search for it is futile.

Keep your body and mind as fit as possible because they are truly the only things you have.

Be fair. Be honest. Be understanding but be stern and reasonable.

Don’t accept anything because it becomes acceptable. Don’t be lackadaisical with right and wrong.

Snack food for Psychopaths

History repeats itself.

We do not listen, nor do we learn. Instead we mash a poisonous blend of sugary, ultra-processed products and empty entertainment down ourselves, and proudly do so, to feel nothing. And when we are duped again by an ever-growing proliferation of profiteers and politicians, who are poison themselves, we act surprised as if we have been doing the work it takes to understand. We demand pity for our stupidity and die never knowing we have lived.

History is spoon fed by fools and salesmen, and written by criminals. Half-truths abound; fraud reigns and lies are snack food for psychopaths. They are believed because we are apathetic, and we believe because to do so gives us the only sustenance we purport to know: money and the feeling of power, those sugary products devoid of nutrition. The walking dead leading the blind, mouths open in entitlement and expectation.

All the while wisemen watch from afar, doing nothing and shaking their heads in disbelief.

Some Aspirations and Ideas

When everything else falls away look for where it is you are standing. There is always a somewhere and a something.

Can you move? Then do so. Is there a difference? Then make it. If it is true that life is an empty glass. Fill it or not.

Don’t listen to fools. Dismiss them, even if the world bows before their tripe. Rise above and be alone if that is what it takes.

To search for beauty begins with knowing what you search for. First, there is the fleeting and insubstantial, and then there is the Truthful. The one a woman who grows old and the other a smiling goddess.

An empty heart will sometimes stand still and wait. And sometimes it will search for something to love. It is not fickle; we are dismissive.

When you have nothing to say or to write. Listen. If it is silent, enjoy it.

The War Machine

Concepts that are ultimately meaningful are always at odds with powers that would control them.

Those powers will want only profitable, easy to digest ideas that dull the senses and limit the intellect. Such powers are not interested in ideas that are intellectual or actually socially progressive. The ideas that lead to exploration and question the goodness of profitable, easy to digest ideas demand more than empty rhetoric from smiling faces.

Courtesy, privacy, responsibility, and justice do not pay. Division, data, unaccountability, and easy answers often do pay at least in the short term and for the few. But it is in the small battles that we fight against the war machine and those who support it, that the war is wone.

The war machine is subtle. With ease comes comfort. With comfort comes apathy. And with apathy comes defeat. Those that value worthwhile ideas and meaningful activities and are willing to fight, will fight lonely battles in the night, if only for themselves, for ideas that are greater than all of us.

But in the darkness of greed, intrusion, control, injustice and apathy they are the pinpricks of light in an otherwise dark tunnel.

Work

Work. Work the mind and the body and peace and tranquility will follow. Work with purpose and control what you do for work. Work for others, not because you must, not because they pay you to work, but because you desire the peace and tranquility that only work can give.

In our deluded society we barter meaningless things for the illusion that we work. We must, it is true, work to be independent, but it is not payment that makes us independent. It is our realization that independence is a worthy cause to work for.

If the argument is that “we must…”, that “our society demands…” then it is a lie. It is deception on both parts: ourselves and others. Do not believe that we must meet the expectations of others, and lower the expectations you have of yourself. Remember:

You are not owed anything. You are guaranteed nothing.

An Addendum