Being alive,
being aware of being alive is the gift.
Sooner or later we have to reconcile,
have to embrace,
that we cannot know where the gift comes from—
—even the white elephants.
That is the nature of real gifts.
We can sometimes spend our lives looking
for someone to worship for the gift,
or for someone to blame for the gift,
or even to somehow deny the gift.
The masks we wear can only hide the gift from ourselves.
The gift is how we can tell we are alive.
A live being.
By Charles Buell.
Thinking that one has no tragic flaws, is likely an indication of at least one.
We like to comfort ourselves with the almost desperate idea that the amount of evil in the world is magically/miraculously balanced by the amount of good in the world.
Sometimes that just seems impossible to reconcile.
Frosting on shit does not actually change, in any meaningful way, what is frosted. When bad things happen, comforting ourselves with delusions of its being “god’s will,” or that “they are tests that make us stronger,” or that “they know not what they do,” or that “they are in a better place now,” are only the tools we utilize to get us through the night, and to a hopefully brighter day tomorrow. But even “hope” is just another illusion—albeit the ultimate card we play when all else fails. These cards may all have their place in the game of life, but sooner or later it seems we must come to terms with its just being a game. Chocolate can be just as effective.
Even when I am enjoying my usual optimistic state of mind, I am pretty sure that there is more than enough evil to go around. Many of us are so isolated in our own little cocoons of safety, ready to emerge as butterflies, that it is easy to delude ourselves as to what life is like for so many oppressed human beings around the planet. We can maintain this delusion by simply not reading the paper and by only watching “reality” TV. It is hard to reconcile the importance of appearing on “Dating Naked,” when two-year-olds are having their heads lopped off on live video.
Let’s define “evil” to mean only the things that human beings pretend that they do not have any control over. In that light, what human beings do to each other on a daily basis is certainly not balanced–has no equal—“other-side-of-the-coin.”
Thinking of “evil” in this light, I am assuming that being killed by tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning, mud slides, tornadoes or being thrown from horses, does not “count.” It cannot be evil to merely be unlucky or stupid. Of course, if there is some behind the scenes character orchestrating these events, then we may be back to evil again.
Not all kinds of sorrow and human suffering are evil. In fact, much unhappiness is simply part of being alive and the fact that we are capable of being aware of it—most creatures are not this lucky—or unlucky depending on how bad the pain is. It is however evil when a few misguided persons are able to exterminate or exploit whole populations of unlucky people “just because.”
Evil is merely when someone thinks they are more important than someone else. Sorry, but I do not think it really matters who the “thinker” is.
Evil manifests itself in greed, selfishness, religion, bullying, politics, economic inequality, prejudice etc. Believe it or not, wherever there is belief, there is evil. But don’t believe me, this can easily be observed. Perhaps we could coin a new word that better communicates just how much belief and evil are in bed together. We could call it: “believil.”
We like to pretend that we humans simply can’t do any better—that it merely reflects the state of our evolution. Some might argue that it is closer to de-evolution.
We even attribute being evil as part of what it means to be human.
To admit that we could be better would require us to admit that we do not really want to be any better—or we would be.
If evil is all tied up in what it means to be human and we stopped being evil, would we not then stop being human? It becomes a vicious illogical circle from which there is no escape. It is actually worse than a circle; it is closer to a Möbius strip, where we have the choice of being on the edge or the surface—either way we just can’t shake our position and arrive (or don’t arrive) at the same place over and over. Of course it is always someone else that is not towing the line. If only everyone was on the edge. Of only everyone was on the surface. The “if-only” opt out.
Apparently redefining what it means to be human never occurs to anyone.
It is unfortunate for all human beings, that it is considerably easier to trade “like-for-like,” or to “do unto others as they do unto you,” and thus continue the cycle of violence, mayhem and psychosis. What a shift it would be if we simply “did unto others as we would have them do unto us.” This principle works for all but a very few, who by any definition would be considered psychotic.
On the other hand, it is fortunate for all human beings, that the very tiniest amount of good, even when done unintentionally, especially when done unintentionally, has the power to shift, to transform, the direction of evil—even in the midst of evil.
One smile can soften a lifetime of being trapped in a closet.
A single laugh can ease a lifetime of being incarcerated by guilt or grief.
A simple hug can thaw a frozen heart.
Epiphanies can come from a single word or gesture.
A single tear can reveal who we are.
And just look at the power of a wink at the right time and place.
Some of us consider ourselves unimaginably, vastly lucky in this regard.
To have lived, and to have never gotten to take any of these things with us when we go—that is truly evil.
By Charles Buell
At some point in our lives, we grow up enough to realize that some of the things (pick your poison) that we assumed that we would grow out of, just isn’t going to happen—there just won’t be enough time—even if we do live to be 100.
We even get to a place in our minds where that fact is either OK or just plain doesn’t matter enough. Add to that, the fact, that sometimes those things never needed changing to begin with. We were often, from infancy, given incorrect information and lived our lives as if it was correct information. That is the price we pay for not coming with proper operating instructions.
What was once important seems somehow irrelevant as we get older.
When I could press my own weight above my head, I could not imagine there would ever be a time when I could not. What is surprising to me is actually how little that seems to matter now. If someone had told me 40 years ago, that I would not care about lifting myself over my head when I was 67, I would have found it disturbingly absurd.
This is not so much about missing what I once could do, as it is with the enjoyment of what has replaced it. I now cannot imagine where I would find the time to do what it takes to be that strong. Instead I merely enjoy that I am still strong enough to do what I do want to do (for the most part), while doing some of those “old” things often enough to have my body bitch about it for weeks later.
There is a vast ocean between what the mind remembers doing and what the body can actually do. We are born with that disconnect and, if we live long enough, we die with that disconnect.
By Charles Buell
Now I am not talking about the kinds of miracles where someone finds the image of the Virgin Mary in paint chips or peanut shells. I once saw a very clear image of Scooby Doo in a pancake–and Oscar the Grouch in ivy–so I am just saying.
I am also not talking about the kind of “miracle” where a Tornado wipes out a whole town but spares the daycare center.
The former can be accounted for by society-wide psychosis—not really any different than seeing animate and inanimate objects in clouds or Rorschach tests.
The later can be explained by science. Plus the idea discounts the rest of the town that was not spared. Was that an “unmiracle?”
I am talking more about the kinds of miracles that account for the never ending willingness of human beings to engage in long term relationships with other human beings.
We do this in spite of the overwhelming evidence of the folly of such endeavors.
The rewards of such relationships, far out weight the fact that the hottie you could not stop having sex with 24/7–turns into the person you become “willing” to have change your diaper, or you theirs.
These long term relationships also reveal evidence of what could either be nothing more than a reflection of cosmic design, or that the universe has a sense of humor. We get to discover that by the time you want to make love to someone as old as your grandmother, you are yourself as old as your grandfather.
The “unspoken” willingness to immerse yourself in the life of another human being, knowing full well that that person might be run over tomorrow by the proverbial bus–or “kick you to the curb” for your sister, brother or best friend next week–is to me truly a miracle of immense proportions.
We are of course talking about “love.”
When love lasts–it is because it “matures.”
The interesting paradox about love is that we must know that “ultimately” it does not last forever, yet we must live our lives as if it does.
Now THAT is a miracle!
By Charles Buell