The Joy of 9/11

By the time you finish this little ramble
at least 3000 people will have died on this
beautiful planet from idiotic reasons:

Car crashes,
stupid wars,
starvation because the rich stole the food that was supposed to go to the poor
starvation because the world bank shoved the country into monoculture and the people forgot or weren't allowed to grow their own food
drugs that doctors gave doing the person in
lover's quarrels where the gun is the answer
drug war idiocy

and so on

This human race does dumb things
with its big brain
that gets used to make weapons
and to justify the most common human
fallacy:
The Me Right, You wrong fallacy

And throughout today,
many will be busy saying
the terrorists were wrong
or that George Bush was wrong
or that the whole economic mess of the country is wrong

and you know what:
everyone who wants to be right,
is
and yet,
are they happy?

So let's dance around and wonder:
are we terrorizing ourselves with the idea
that 9/11 shouldn't have happened

are we terrorizing ourselves with the wish
that in this country at least
crazy men with the idea that they can solve
anything by killing a bunch of people all at
once ( Hiroshima anyone? firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo)
should happen

people want to be right
the most idiotic form of this is to go
out and figure that you are so right
you get to kill off a bunch of the Wrong crowd

crazy

and then,
if we want to erase this idiocy
from the world
or from happening in "our" country,
who are we, but mental expungers of the
the Wrong folk
so we wipe the "bad/ dumb/ wrong THEM" out
with our judgment

me right, you wrong
ah, such sweet poison

such a common way to waste our lives

and the unfailing way to be unhappy:
You, the past, should have been different

me right, the past should have been my picture,
you, reality, the past as it was, is WRong

la, la

lots of luck

so, if you don't agree with me,
be happy,
but don't be right,
be amused, confused,
curious:

how could he possibly think that way?

what would it be like if I tried that out for awhile?

And if you can't entertain an "alien" viewpoint,
why get so mad at the terrorists,
who clearly lacked humor and the good graces
to see that not everyone agreed with them

they are just like us
with the extreme of getting to really wipe out
what they don't like
including themselves

imagine how much self hatred goes into terrorism,
forget all the hogwash about 40 virgins in heaven,
these dopes all knew they were going to die,
and that they were destroying themselves

nothing but good old lack of love
for self
others
and the whole big mess
can lead to such drastic acts

and then again as the ramble rumbles
down,
and the 3000 mentioned above are all
dead
and here we are still

what's that about?

it's our moment
this gol dern moment is
our life

how much love and joy
and tolerance of the "wrong" people,
and love for the "wrong" people
can we conjure up

IN THIS MOMENT,
CAUSE IT'S THE ONLY ONE

ciao
for
NOW

Chris, 9-11-2011
whoppie, here we are,
you and I
alive

Where's the Problem?

Here's a quote from the New Testament:
Mark, Chapter 7, verses 17, 15, and 16:


Then he called the crowd to him, again, and said to them,

"Hear me, all of you, and understand.

There is nothing, outside of a person, that
entering into that person,
can defile them.

But the things that come out
of a person,
these are what defile us all.

If anyone has ears to hear,
let him hear."



This is the glory and
the work
of life.

Someone comes along and says:

"You are a jerk."

So be it. That does not defile us.

We react
in the good old reactionary way,
and think, "What an awful person."
That defiles us.

We say back something mean or snippy to them.
That defiles us.

We gossip about them
to others.
That defiles us.


Or, to raise the stakes,
our sweet friend is tired,
or dealing with too many things,
or going into new and scary territory,
or feels they are being treated in ways
that before were really awful,
or they actually are being treated
not so wonderfully by wonderful us,

and in that trapped and awful feeling
they start
screaming at you.

So be it.
Welcome to What Is.
Welcome to the chance to Love What Is.

And their screaming doesn't defile us.

Our fury at them for being furious defiles us.

Our yelling back, or preaching or demanding they
instantly be "good," defiles us.

Our lack of curiosity and love about what's
underneath the big response defiles us.

Our condemning and/ or gossiping about them
defiles us.


There are lots of more ways we can
react
in the reactionary
mode
and all
these ways defile us.


The Work of Byron Katie
is of great use in
making the distinction between
the outer act and our inner suffering
from the outer act.

And so is this:
Coming back to the present,
being in our skeleton and gravity
and in air
and our breathing,
and noticing:
I am alive, right now.

And thinking:
how can I be of use
and happy,
right now?

Simple?

Yes.

Hard to pull off?

Yes.

Life changing?

Yes.

And today’s job/ task/ game/ delight/ wake up call:
find what in you is reactionary.
Watch all the times you are “upset”
and see how it isn’t about the other person,
it’s about your

identification
with your reaction

to the other person.


Be kind to yourself.

Be amused.

Be awake.


It’s lots of fun.
Seen as a game,
all the “challenges” of other people “not treating us well"
becomes the delight
of discovering
how we defile ourselves,

and, on the other side of this:
how sweet and
peaceful and
free
it feels
when we don’t go the reactionary route
but just
("just!")
settle into loving What Is.

Saturday the beautiful, M's b-day and so on

if someone is in our life
and we are talking to them
and we know we are talking to
them
and we know they are
sort of listening to us
and sort of thinking what to say
and sort of lost in whatever whatever
we are awake
and in conversation

this is hard,
and in a dream
last night
i was explaining the Gurdjieff
idea of remembering ourselves
to a group
of people
and was remembering myself
as i did it.

amazingly high
feeling

and now,
for the
glories of today:

Marlie had party at garden
semi surprise
and very nice.
see her almost blog; MarvelousMarlie.blogspot.com

and National Writing Month
continues:

today's excerpt:

“And if you kill yourself, then I’m a failure, so we can have something in common. Would you like me better if I were a failure.”

Jasper grins. Twenty five. Wound up. Rich kid out on his own. Confused as hell. Pissed about the poverty of the spirit that seemed central to all the jobs that wanted him. Spoiled a bit, parents paying for therapy. Poor little rich boy with the usual lack of love and self confidence of those who haven’t had to overcome real obstacles.

“Yeah. I’d like you a lot better if you were a failure, too.”

“Okay. I am a failure.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“My boyfriend just went off with another woman after I discovered them making out together in a park that he knows is practically my favorite place in the world.”

He looks at her. She is sad. A little. Not enough. But still. That is kind of a failure. “How long were you together?”

“Five years.”

“Okay. That counts as a failure.”

“Feel better?”

“Actually. Not really. But I like you more.”

“I’ll try to fail more often.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Okay. I’ll try to learn from my mistakes.”

“What mistakes did you make with him?”

“I didn’t listen to his silences and learn that they were unhappy and not just private.”

Jasper gets scared. This woman is smart. He doesn’t really hate her. He desperately wants her to like him, no, love him, why couldn’t he have had a mother with sensitivity and intelligence, or at least one of the two. A drinker and a stinker and someone who’s idea of thinking was to call the Democrats “socialists.” What a stupid bitch.

“I hate my mother.”

“So do I,” says Karen, somehow wanting to confuse Jasper’s poor me, little child bereft and alone act.

“You hate my mother without even knowing her. Because she was so mean to me?”

“Mean Mom. ‘Mean’ means, didn’t do what I wanted. No, your Mom is fine until proven guilty. Mine was an insensitive cow. For a couple of minutes I’ll join in your indulgence and hate her.”

“A couple of minutes? I’ve hated my Mom for years.”

“And that’s got her to shape up? The way killing her will.”

“You are going too fast.”

“Killing yourself punishes her. She feels bad that she has failed with you. It bothers her until the stupid shit that always diverted her from paying real attention to you once more diverts her and she is back into lala land.”

“She is from L.A.”

“Okay. I’ll hate her, too. Does one good to hate all the insensitive Moms in L.A.”

“That’s a lot of Moms,” says Jasper, almost with humor. Gallows humor is always the first step. No, is a crucial first step to finding a philosophy of living in a fucked up, narcissistic, lopsided and shitholes world.

Is that really what she thinks the world is????