What have they done to the earth..
What have they done to the earth?
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down
I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it...
NOW
What does that song lyric have to do with what I am about to write? This is not particularly a purely environmental post, but at the same time, what has happened to the environment is a reflection and symptom of this topic anyways.
I don't always think I am going to have anything to say for the week. This week was certainly heading in that direction, and then I was having a discussion with a fellow member of my gym who is a teacher here at the nearby elementary school. I think we were heading in the direction of the topic of karma - and when it comes down to it - I do believe in karma. But I don't necessarily believe that if something happens in your life it means that you are being punished and it deserved to happen to you. Does anyone deserve to get hurt? Does a child deserve to be beaten, have his or her legs blown off in an explosion, get molested, screamed at - does an innocent child deserve any of these things to happen? I don't think so. Does a woman deserve to be raped or beaten? The answer is no there too. Yet - these things happen all the time. I was asked if I deserved the screaming I endured in my childhood, the same screaming which left a life long scar upon my confidence, and in my mind was the direct result of me wanting me to end my life at the age of 20 - mainly because I felt like I did not have the confidence to have a job and support myself. Don't tell me it was just a chemical imbalance - because quite frankly that is a crock of shit. Did I deserve that? No - even if I was a high maintenance pain in the ass child, I didn't deserve it. But it still happened anyways.
What I am getting at here is these things happen to us, not because we deserve them, but they are a reflection of the world we live in - and then it is our life long task, journey, mission - to recover, heal, move on so that maybe the next generation does not have to suffer what we went through in our lives. It is far easier said than done. Any one traumatic event in our lives can be traced back to generations upon generations of traumatic events. The Holocaust did not happen to me or affect me directly, but as a next or 2nd generation Jew who had relatives die there and had the event affect the psyche of those who raised me, it most certainly did shape and affect my life anyways. My parents clearly went through hell when they grew up, in their own way, and unfortunately, a lot of that hell got passed down to their children despite our material comfort surroundings. Just take a look at us - ALL of us in our family - which one of us has not been through some horrific depression or event which has threatened our very existence, and left scars of neurosis, anxiety, and sadness buried in our psyche. The very dysfunctional aspect of how we communicate (or fail to) and interact with each other is a reflection of that.
In my discussion with this lady at the gym, I told her that I didn't deserve to go through what I went through as a child, just like she did not deserve the treatment she received as a child or even by her first abusive husband either. I told her I see humanity as a sum total of all human beings combined as one very sick organism, and our sickness will go in one of two directions - we will either figure out individually and collectively a way that we can heal ourselves, or we will simply self-destruct and go the direction of the dinosaurs as a species. I would like to think option number two will be the answer, but I clearly don't know.
Getting back to the song lyrics here, our world around us is a reflection of our sickness - the destruction of our planet, the global warming, pollution, assault upon our environment, assault upon each other, persecution of fellow human beings, ethnic cleansing - these things would not happen in a healthy species or group of animals - but they happen to us - and they are the result of our collective sickness. September 11 - did not deserve to happen to us either - and none of the victims deserved to lose their lives, or the lives of a loved one or family member. After it happened, I felt sickened for a couple days. Everyone seemed to unite in sadness and grief, and it seemed to even bring people closer together. But not long after, we run off to cause more grief and destruction in a futile attempt to bring justice to those that made it happen, and just end up causing the death or injury of hundreds of thousands of more people - just like in that movie "Boyz in the Hood" where the murder of one gang member just prompts an endless cycle of revenge and violence. Now people out there who are dying are motivated to take revenge upon us it just goes on and on. The world around us - the world of war, polluted air, global warming, assaulted earth - conquering of environment - continued elimination of species - if that does not point to a collective sickness of humanity, what does?
On an individual level, I see it as my task as one of the billions of humans who makes up this sick organism - to heal the wounds of my psyche, and bring the demons of my unconsciousness to the surface of the ocean, so to speak - so that as one cell in the organism of humanity, I can be a healed cell. People who are aware, even if there is only a handful of them out there - do not hurt themselves or others, and have the awareness to look inside and face their own demons instead of projecting them onto others, and then persecuting innocent beings, which is the cause of racism and ethnic cleansing. A healed person will not cause more anguish to others. So - it is my life long task to go within, find the cure to my own illness - face the hurt and anguish - and in my mind, that is my definition of karma - or my personal karma. It does not mean that I deserved to have suffered the hurt in my life, it just means that because the hurt has inevitably happened to me and just about everyone, that it is my task to face it, own it, make it mine, and then make every effort to bring love to the surface and to others around me, so that I can create an atmosphere of love to counteract a world of hatred around us. That is my life mission - and I am not going to say it is an easy one - but I will pat myself on the back here - I have made progress. I have had psychoanalysis, I have written songs, meditated through musical expression, I write here - and comparing myself to the suicidal 20 year old boy I once was, I have come a long way. And yet - the challenge never lets up - dealing with marriage, raising a child, still facing on and off depression from time to time - it is not ever a battle which will be entirely won.
When I became aware of the massive scope of the extent of damage that really existed within me, my reaction was to run - a natural reaction to run when facing something that overwhelming. That is why taking my own life seemed like such a natural desire to me at the time, because I wanted to run. We all want to run away from our burdens - and I know my wife experiences this at times when facing her own task at hand as a parent and recovering victim of abuse. But where are we going to run to? If karma does hold true, than we are here to face our pain. If we end our lives, does it just mean we start over again somewhere else, facing the same pain in another life? If in this life we move somewhere else, get away from our situation of torment - well if it is part of us and we created it, won't it just follow us wherever we go - you know - the old wherever you go there you are? If I end my marriage for example, in an effort to find a better relationship, well - if I was responsbile for bringing my wife into my life to begin with, won't I just bring someone else identical to her around with my next try? If I made it happen once, I will make it happen again. Ram Dass talks about "karmic responsibility" in one of his books I am reading - and in my mind, that means facing up to the situation that our own psyche creates.
I don't have an answer for everyone who suffers the traumas that so many of us do. I know I have been fortunate and even a little lucky to live the life I do, and to have the means to live in a decent home with food, running water and electricity. I don't have to work two jobs, even though the one I have can be demanding. I have come back from an impossible state of depression and how the recovery happened in a lot of ways is a miracle - but somehow it did - and now I just hope I can be of some help to others along the way who have gone through the same thing. I did not choose a path of being a therapist - because that was too much for me - but in a job where I do have contact with others on a daily basis, I try to be as present as I can when that is required of me, and I try to create a loving environment for those who are going through a time of trouble. It does not mean I am healed - my wife can read out a long list of neurotic and even self-destructive behaviors that I still have - but I feel like I am making my way through it and I know for a fact I am more conscious and more aware of who I am than I was 20 years ago. 20 years from now - if I make it that far - who knows - maybe I am just starting to scratch the surface. Clearly there is more than can be said here, but I guess I can save it for another time.
Till i let go of a broken heart
I let go to an open heart
I let go of my broken dreams
I let go to the mystery
And i believe in the miracle
I believe in the spiritual
I believe in the one above
I believe in the one i love
What have they done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and dragged her down
I hear a very gentle sound
With your ear down to the ground
We want the world and we want it...
NOW
What does that song lyric have to do with what I am about to write? This is not particularly a purely environmental post, but at the same time, what has happened to the environment is a reflection and symptom of this topic anyways.
I don't always think I am going to have anything to say for the week. This week was certainly heading in that direction, and then I was having a discussion with a fellow member of my gym who is a teacher here at the nearby elementary school. I think we were heading in the direction of the topic of karma - and when it comes down to it - I do believe in karma. But I don't necessarily believe that if something happens in your life it means that you are being punished and it deserved to happen to you. Does anyone deserve to get hurt? Does a child deserve to be beaten, have his or her legs blown off in an explosion, get molested, screamed at - does an innocent child deserve any of these things to happen? I don't think so. Does a woman deserve to be raped or beaten? The answer is no there too. Yet - these things happen all the time. I was asked if I deserved the screaming I endured in my childhood, the same screaming which left a life long scar upon my confidence, and in my mind was the direct result of me wanting me to end my life at the age of 20 - mainly because I felt like I did not have the confidence to have a job and support myself. Don't tell me it was just a chemical imbalance - because quite frankly that is a crock of shit. Did I deserve that? No - even if I was a high maintenance pain in the ass child, I didn't deserve it. But it still happened anyways.
What I am getting at here is these things happen to us, not because we deserve them, but they are a reflection of the world we live in - and then it is our life long task, journey, mission - to recover, heal, move on so that maybe the next generation does not have to suffer what we went through in our lives. It is far easier said than done. Any one traumatic event in our lives can be traced back to generations upon generations of traumatic events. The Holocaust did not happen to me or affect me directly, but as a next or 2nd generation Jew who had relatives die there and had the event affect the psyche of those who raised me, it most certainly did shape and affect my life anyways. My parents clearly went through hell when they grew up, in their own way, and unfortunately, a lot of that hell got passed down to their children despite our material comfort surroundings. Just take a look at us - ALL of us in our family - which one of us has not been through some horrific depression or event which has threatened our very existence, and left scars of neurosis, anxiety, and sadness buried in our psyche. The very dysfunctional aspect of how we communicate (or fail to) and interact with each other is a reflection of that.
In my discussion with this lady at the gym, I told her that I didn't deserve to go through what I went through as a child, just like she did not deserve the treatment she received as a child or even by her first abusive husband either. I told her I see humanity as a sum total of all human beings combined as one very sick organism, and our sickness will go in one of two directions - we will either figure out individually and collectively a way that we can heal ourselves, or we will simply self-destruct and go the direction of the dinosaurs as a species. I would like to think option number two will be the answer, but I clearly don't know.
Getting back to the song lyrics here, our world around us is a reflection of our sickness - the destruction of our planet, the global warming, pollution, assault upon our environment, assault upon each other, persecution of fellow human beings, ethnic cleansing - these things would not happen in a healthy species or group of animals - but they happen to us - and they are the result of our collective sickness. September 11 - did not deserve to happen to us either - and none of the victims deserved to lose their lives, or the lives of a loved one or family member. After it happened, I felt sickened for a couple days. Everyone seemed to unite in sadness and grief, and it seemed to even bring people closer together. But not long after, we run off to cause more grief and destruction in a futile attempt to bring justice to those that made it happen, and just end up causing the death or injury of hundreds of thousands of more people - just like in that movie "Boyz in the Hood" where the murder of one gang member just prompts an endless cycle of revenge and violence. Now people out there who are dying are motivated to take revenge upon us it just goes on and on. The world around us - the world of war, polluted air, global warming, assaulted earth - conquering of environment - continued elimination of species - if that does not point to a collective sickness of humanity, what does?
On an individual level, I see it as my task as one of the billions of humans who makes up this sick organism - to heal the wounds of my psyche, and bring the demons of my unconsciousness to the surface of the ocean, so to speak - so that as one cell in the organism of humanity, I can be a healed cell. People who are aware, even if there is only a handful of them out there - do not hurt themselves or others, and have the awareness to look inside and face their own demons instead of projecting them onto others, and then persecuting innocent beings, which is the cause of racism and ethnic cleansing. A healed person will not cause more anguish to others. So - it is my life long task to go within, find the cure to my own illness - face the hurt and anguish - and in my mind, that is my definition of karma - or my personal karma. It does not mean that I deserved to have suffered the hurt in my life, it just means that because the hurt has inevitably happened to me and just about everyone, that it is my task to face it, own it, make it mine, and then make every effort to bring love to the surface and to others around me, so that I can create an atmosphere of love to counteract a world of hatred around us. That is my life mission - and I am not going to say it is an easy one - but I will pat myself on the back here - I have made progress. I have had psychoanalysis, I have written songs, meditated through musical expression, I write here - and comparing myself to the suicidal 20 year old boy I once was, I have come a long way. And yet - the challenge never lets up - dealing with marriage, raising a child, still facing on and off depression from time to time - it is not ever a battle which will be entirely won.
When I became aware of the massive scope of the extent of damage that really existed within me, my reaction was to run - a natural reaction to run when facing something that overwhelming. That is why taking my own life seemed like such a natural desire to me at the time, because I wanted to run. We all want to run away from our burdens - and I know my wife experiences this at times when facing her own task at hand as a parent and recovering victim of abuse. But where are we going to run to? If karma does hold true, than we are here to face our pain. If we end our lives, does it just mean we start over again somewhere else, facing the same pain in another life? If in this life we move somewhere else, get away from our situation of torment - well if it is part of us and we created it, won't it just follow us wherever we go - you know - the old wherever you go there you are? If I end my marriage for example, in an effort to find a better relationship, well - if I was responsbile for bringing my wife into my life to begin with, won't I just bring someone else identical to her around with my next try? If I made it happen once, I will make it happen again. Ram Dass talks about "karmic responsibility" in one of his books I am reading - and in my mind, that means facing up to the situation that our own psyche creates.
I don't have an answer for everyone who suffers the traumas that so many of us do. I know I have been fortunate and even a little lucky to live the life I do, and to have the means to live in a decent home with food, running water and electricity. I don't have to work two jobs, even though the one I have can be demanding. I have come back from an impossible state of depression and how the recovery happened in a lot of ways is a miracle - but somehow it did - and now I just hope I can be of some help to others along the way who have gone through the same thing. I did not choose a path of being a therapist - because that was too much for me - but in a job where I do have contact with others on a daily basis, I try to be as present as I can when that is required of me, and I try to create a loving environment for those who are going through a time of trouble. It does not mean I am healed - my wife can read out a long list of neurotic and even self-destructive behaviors that I still have - but I feel like I am making my way through it and I know for a fact I am more conscious and more aware of who I am than I was 20 years ago. 20 years from now - if I make it that far - who knows - maybe I am just starting to scratch the surface. Clearly there is more than can be said here, but I guess I can save it for another time.
Till i let go of a broken heart
I let go to an open heart
I let go of my broken dreams
I let go to the mystery
And i believe in the miracle
I believe in the spiritual
I believe in the one above
I believe in the one i love
posted by Zook at 7:49 AM
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