Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Humanity and Self-Definition

Tonight I watched this really depressing movie called 'The Constant Gardener'. A tale of third world country and endless big corporation evil white man injustice. In other words -- it's just another day. 'White men are the antichrist' as some murderer once said before his death sentence was carried out. Sigh. As if all men aren't equal in capacity for harm to others (and self).

There are so many subjects I have studied, from a little to a lot, in my life. The three most demoralizing subjects I ever looked into were the AMA (American Medical Association), the issue of child immunizations in the USA, and Mad Cow syndrome. These being topics I wish I could surgically extract from my mind for my peace of mind. As Joachim Phoenix said in 8mm, "there are some things you can't un-see." I can't change it; it's too horrible, more than most can imagine; so I don't want to know.

We were talking after the movie about issues of the world, and the effect it has on a person when you start believing that 'everyone' is corrupt and that every government is evil incarnate and the world is just a bad place. In most, including me, initially it generates rage, a desire to fight it, to "do something." In me, after that point, I realize what cannot be done, and work to let go of it, since negativity within me does me far more damage than most anything outside of me. In many people, though, they can't let go. It just "eats away" at them from the inside.

I can only conclude that it is my duty to be of warm heart and good intent and to HAVE FAITH, solely because that is what the world most needs and most lacks.

It is easy to be hard. It's easy to be cynical, to be cold. That's the copout, the easy way, the 'default setting' of anybody living in the real world... eventually.

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When I was 18, I was more cynical, cold and deadly than the average assassin. I hadn't had any strong emotion in years. I was studying martial arts and firearms because I wanted to be sure that if anybody had the folly to beat up on me again, now that I was finally old enough to be free, that they would die for the error. I was borderline sociopathic, maybe a little more than borderline but as I had not 'acted out' any poor behavior (yet), I was still free.

As one of my survival skills, I had many 'layers' of intelligence that I no longer have, that I let go of when I let go of the self-protective stuff that created them. But at the time, I was smart enough to know my problems. I knew how bad off I was, and looked for the only tool that seemed strong enough (and free enough) to help me.

And I healed myself. It took years. It took more self hypnosis and conscious-dreaming meditations than I care to remember. I broke through and was able to have emotions again; I laughed maniacally and cried hysterically back and forth, separated by fits of sleeping deeply, for a week when it happened, and was bubbly inside and prone to tears over anything for a couple of years.

My life, which had been a black hole of memory, came back to me in fragments, assembled in a spider web that conveniently makes me 'feel like' I remember my life up to age 18 when most of it I probably don't.

You are what you make yourself. I have a depth of 'nice' I couldn't even conceptualize then; faith, and hope, and a warmth totally absent from me then. I'm a human because I decide what I will be. Not an amoeba; not stimulus-response only, although that often happens initially; but a conscious decision of what I want to be in this world.

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Cynicism is the black tarnish that comes on the coin of experience. It cannot be avoided in the intake. One has to deliberately rub it off and refuse to let that cancer of the soul, that killer of hope, take up any residence inside.

I believe there is an ongoing energy best called 'spiritual warfare' that relates to this as well. It is amazing the world's in as good a shape as it is, considering some of the 'awareness' I've had of the darker elements of spirit -- and its evangelistic crusade to sway humanity toward a vibration that is more lucrative for other species.

Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls has some lyrics in a song I like that relate to this:

i've seen kingdoms blow like ashes in the winds of change
but the power of truth is the fuel for the flame
so the darker the ages get
there's a stronger beacon yet
let it be me
(this is not a fighting song)
let it be me
(not a wrong for a wrong)
let it be me
if the world is night
shine my life like a light



Archangel Michael gave me 'faith', years ago, when I prayed for it regularly. It was a gift without measure. I don't have as much anymore, or I don't pay attention to it as often, that is my own doing. But when I really close my eyes, and center, and ask myself, what do I want to be inside? What is my self-definition? I feel it again.

I have a couple of posts on the dojoblue blog (which is not going to exist much longer I think) that fit here:

Constructing Faith, a blogpost about Archangel Michael, in part; and

Truth, about a dream (with nuns, no less!) and thoughts I was having following it.


In a world of cretins and creeps, thugs and thieves, there are still many beautiful people and things in our world. There are people who do not define themselves based on what is on the outside of their world, but based on what is inside them, instead. They don't let the hard reality of the dark side of humanity pollute their self-definition.

I will not be just a 'reactor'. I refuse to be a "moral casualty" of the side-effects of the nightly news. I will be warm, and love at every opportunity, and generous, and as virtuous as I can manage in the circumstance of my life.

There used to be a saying, 'You are what you eat.'

I think it should be, 'You are how you love.'
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