As the purveyor of the following pointed out, the U.S. can't seem to win the war on drugs, can't seem to care well for the sick, can't seem to educate our children, can't win the war on 'terror,' can't reform economic imbalances and can't ... well, fill in the blank.
But we can:
Isn't it the "smallest the US Military has been since WWII?"
ReplyDeleteAnd, military might isn't measured in numbers. Ask the Spartans or the Vietnamese, or the Iraqis, or the Afghani...
But I think I see your point. We do spend a lot of energy on fear. I also think the war on sickness, education, drugs, terrorism and poverty can never be won. Would be nice to see us push harder though.
Over the last years, I spent a load of energy building a stronger gate to keep my mouth well shut, against an inner voice and will to speak and act and all because I feared causing conflict and separation. Can you guess what eventually happened? Only what I had made such an immense effort to prevent…
ReplyDeleteI spoke ‘little-er’ than many times in the past while – inside the gates – thoughts were slowly coming to shape and building energy up. However, when the energy held in eventually became too heavy to bear and the words and actions finally found a way out, they were sometimes sharper and heavier than a sword. As we know, swords can hurt a lot, both others and ourselves, especially in the hands of those of us untrained to use them. What goes around comes around.
OK, so I accept that we are living tough times when it might be foolish to simply open the gates wide open and hug everyone in. Sometimes, the very same person that smiles and hugs you in public is the very same one that stabs you as soon as no one else is watching or as we simply turn our backs. My guess is that, more or less consciously, we all have an inclination to do the same, even if with no intention of hurting anyone.
Sometimes we just need to talk to clear our mind and let some energy out to relieve the pain otherwise caused by holding it in, even with no intention of hurting anyone. When we feel that the individual – or collective – directly involved won’t listen – and sometimes we don’t fully listen, simply because our consciousness and mind-ears aren’t tuned in –, we end up exchanging those thoughts and energy with a closer friend, brother, mother or father, relieving ourselves for a while but still holding it all within a wider yet still vicious circle… And what goes around comes around.
Judging from my experience, if our greatest effort is on building stronger and stronger gates around our mouths and keeping them well shut and ourselves in and others out, I’d bet that - eventually – someone will find a way to breach them and – precisely what we feared so much – will suddenly happen.
And – again judging from my experience – for as long as we place our greatest effort on fearing war and defeat, war and defeat is what – eventually – we’ll most likely get.
If we truly believe that Life's intelligence, creativity and energy is unlimited, who can wisely expect to hold it in – or out – forever?
There is a pretty interesting youtube video recently by two American brothers singing about Singapore and Malaysia.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, after the local government in Singapore banned chewing gum, and on the other extreme we are historically one of the most disarmed regions in the entire world, the best that the world can offer us is how an unarmed civilian Malaysian airline flying across Ukraine crashed from reasons obscure till today.
Now whether is US-backed Ukraine at fault here or is Russian-backed rebels at fault there, one is reminded of a very nice historical anecdote about how Venerable Ananda the Buddha's disciple passed away - he happened passing through two groups at war and since the war could hardly be addressed, he flung himself into midair with supernatural powers, and disintegrated into a variety of ashes or even precious relics that both sides collected - genkaku when you visited the hospital recently I copied you in an email, it's an email about hardly anything in particular just a preference of zen / chan buddhish precepts over God's commandments.
<3 Amusingly Taiwan may have got more military capability than Singapore and Malaysia combined.
I don't want to have recall my fantasy about where Tokelau is in the Pacific. I won't wish to migrate into Nauru also in the Pacific in order to find out how solitude is like. There are 7000 million human beings on this planet Earth today when either Jesus Christ or Shakyamuni Buddha were around 2000 years old there were probably 20 million or slightly more than that.
How do I buy Adam a cup of coffee from miles away when gofundme obstructs me from donating even 1 cent into his account sighhhhhhhh?
Love, Lionel