Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Getting the ruling elites to give up their psychopathic ways in addition to getting the military recruits to give up blindly following orders and the worker class blindly consuming (consumer goods and/or social media content) would ALL be necessary to turn this situation around. The vast majority of us in the industrialized “West” are complicit in this life denying situation. My own personal patterns are slowly being brought back into alignment with the balance of a more natural way of living by turning to God. In my case, not a specific religion, but a recognition of a Power and Intelligence beyond my understanding, but which I can have access to with humility, patience, love and respect. Sounds like the very things you’ve been cultivating when taking pictures with your friend Bob’s lens. Blessings to you.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! It is quite nice now and then to hear echo's returned to something I put out there! It helps me listen in new ways to what I am trying to say.
I am at a place, where I am trying to understand how we got ourselves into this insane place, and maybe how to get to a place where I can imagine how we could be sane again. I also am trying to get out of a place where I give up on humanity in general, and blame all of us for the places we have created, and embrace that not everyone is a willing participant in the madness, but that most of us have very little choice in choosing a sane path, with the current infrastructure (the physical infrastructure, the designs of our communities, the roads, the sewers, the airports, etc) and the superstructure (the political systems, the laws, the educational system, religions, and all the institutions, media methods, etc.). Trying to live simpler more harmonious lives outside the insanity is almost impossible, when we are all impacted by the global insanity. I do acknowledge (I hope) that as a person of great privilege, that I have many choices not available to many people in the world, and am trying to figure out what if anything can I do with my privilege (or maybe despite it)? I agree that turning to God, or as you say “a power and intelligence beyond my understanding” is part of the fix to the dilemmas, but turning to powers I don’t understand can be challenging. My biggest challenge though is where to find that “understanding”. I think I experience this Power when I watch the other creatures as they do their own thing, which hopefully helps me to realize that this “Power” is also at work in me, and my fellow humans, maybe even potentially the “psychopathic” ones. Because if it isn’t, then it seems like the only choices one has in response to the madness is to use violence in response to the violence, or try and get away from it, to give up, and at best hope for a better world after this one comes to an end. I am not ready to give up on this one yet, and hoping that perhaps with what ever time I have left here, I can experience it now, rather than then later – which is maybe selfish on my part.
Anyway, sorry for this mostly rambling response to what you said, as I think there is more to unpack in your words, but for now I will “stew” on them. Be well as you can and thanks for the blessings, and I bounce some back to you!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Getting the ruling elites to give up their psychopathic ways in addition to getting the military recruits to give up blindly following orders and the worker class blindly consuming (consumer goods and/or social media content) would ALL be necessary to turn this situation around. The vast majority of us in the industrialized “West” are complicit in this life denying situation. My own personal patterns are slowly being brought back into alignment with the balance of a more natural way of living by turning to God. In my case, not a specific religion, but a recognition of a Power and Intelligence beyond my understanding, but which I can have access to with humility, patience, love and respect. Sounds like the very things you’ve been cultivating when taking pictures with your friend Bob’s lens. Blessings to you.
Heather,
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! It is quite nice now and then to hear echo's returned to something I put out there! It helps me listen in new ways to what I am trying to say.
I am at a place, where I am trying to understand how we got ourselves into this insane place, and maybe how to get to a place where I can imagine how we could be sane again. I also am trying to get out of a place where I give up on humanity in general, and blame all of us for the places we have created, and embrace that not everyone is a willing participant in the madness, but that most of us have very little choice in choosing a sane path, with the current infrastructure (the physical infrastructure, the designs of our communities, the roads, the sewers, the airports, etc) and the superstructure (the political systems, the laws, the educational system, religions, and all the institutions, media methods, etc.). Trying to live simpler more harmonious lives outside the insanity is almost impossible, when we are all impacted by the global insanity. I do acknowledge (I hope) that as a person of great privilege, that I have many choices not available to many people in the world, and am trying to figure out what if anything can I do with my privilege (or maybe despite it)? I agree that turning to God, or as you say “a power and intelligence beyond my understanding” is part of the fix to the dilemmas, but turning to powers I don’t understand can be challenging. My biggest challenge though is where to find that “understanding”. I think I experience this Power when I watch the other creatures as they do their own thing, which hopefully helps me to realize that this “Power” is also at work in me, and my fellow humans, maybe even potentially the “psychopathic” ones. Because if it isn’t, then it seems like the only choices one has in response to the madness is to use violence in response to the violence, or try and get away from it, to give up, and at best hope for a better world after this one comes to an end. I am not ready to give up on this one yet, and hoping that perhaps with what ever time I have left here, I can experience it now, rather than then later – which is maybe selfish on my part.
Anyway, sorry for this mostly rambling response to what you said, as I think there is more to unpack in your words, but for now I will “stew” on them. Be well as you can and thanks for the blessings, and I bounce some back to you!
Tom