A family member calls me “paranoid” for daring mention it. They are elderly and extremely abrasive. No friends because of it. A deeper look reveals something else: physically, mentally and very much emotionally fragile. Death increasingly nearer. A lifetime of voting and acting in myopic self-interest for the most expedient and expoditious route to their own bottom line this quarter (because that’s what successful businessmen do), nearly a century of time, energy and money spent being physically, verbally, emotionally, financially abusive as means to most expedient and expoditious ends. Only to live long enough to realize their own weapons begining to turn against themselves, and the longer they live, the moreso it happens.
I’m not even angry at them for it (I am for the situation, though).
Buddha said life is suffering because of ignorance. The situations we find ourselves in are saliently illustrative of that truth.
Generation after generation making the same mistakes, as the situation steadily deteroriates, but it’s so slowly, it’s hidden from up close, immediate view. And as conditions deteriorate, there is less time for people trying to survive to step back for a larger view, and when there is, we’re so broken and dysregulated, without even knowing where to look for tools, let alone have them offered or easily accessible. I’m not angry at my fellow proletariats, anymore for being ignorant, because I’m guilty of the same things for many of the same reasons. Visceral frustration arises when we’d offer tools of liberation to have our offering, aching hands violently slapped away. But we either keep trying or give up. It takes grit, gumption, mastery over all parts of ourselves, and will to continue. But we must, if the dream is ever to be realized, if not for ourselves, those who come behind us.
These people want us to give up. Their mantra is: resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
My mantra, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, when necessary is: choose you **this day ** whom you will serve. If I don’t choose, the choice is made anyway.
A family member calls me “paranoid” for daring mention it. They are elderly and extremely abrasive. No friends because of it. A deeper look reveals something else: physically, mentally and very much emotionally fragile. Death increasingly nearer. A lifetime of voting and acting in myopic self-interest for the most expedient and expoditious route to their own bottom line this quarter (because that’s what successful businessmen do), nearly a century of time, energy and money spent being physically, verbally, emotionally, financially abusive as means to most expedient and expoditious ends. Only to live long enough to realize their own weapons begining to turn against themselves, and the longer they live, the moreso it happens.
I’m not even angry at them for it (I am for the situation, though).
Buddha said life is suffering because of ignorance. The situations we find ourselves in are saliently illustrative of that truth.
Generation after generation making the same mistakes, as the situation steadily deteroriates, but it’s so slowly, it’s hidden from up close, immediate view. And as conditions deteriorate, there is less time for people trying to survive to step back for a larger view, and when there is, we’re so broken and dysregulated, without even knowing where to look for tools, let alone have them offered or easily accessible. I’m not angry at my fellow proletariats, anymore for being ignorant, because I’m guilty of the same things for many of the same reasons. Visceral frustration arises when we’d offer tools of liberation to have our offering, aching hands violently slapped away. But we either keep trying or give up. It takes grit, gumption, mastery over all parts of ourselves, and will to continue. But we must, if the dream is ever to be realized, if not for ourselves, those who come behind us.
These people want us to give up. Their mantra is: resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
My mantra, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, when necessary is: choose you **this day ** whom you will serve. If I don’t choose, the choice is made anyway.