[Thoughts from ~burning woman~ by Sha’Tara]
Quote: “I’ve led such a little life, and even that will be over pretty soon. I’ve allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there was so much more and it’s all gone unused and now it will never be. Why do we get all this life if we never use it? Why do we have all these feelings, dreams, hopes if we don’t ever use them?” (from Shirley Valentine, the movie)
I’ve been doing much introspection these recent weeks, and months, leaving all those other lives alone (the past ones and the future ones that present themselves to my awareness and too often create more confusion in my overworked mind) and concentrating on this one life of seventy four years.
Yes, as Shirley says, that life will be over pretty soon, no matter what. These Earthian bodies have a certain lifespan and do not stretch far beyond it. When we’re young it’s easy to dismiss our end, it seems such a long ways off. But at my age this end is something very real, to be seriously contemplated. What makes for a noble death, then? That’s assuming, of course, that an individual cares whether s/he dies such a death?
Is it noble to have been an obedient servant/slave of the system and tried one’s best to fit in and even to some degree benefit personally from it? Is it nobler to have lived the life of a rebel; a dissident, always rejecting out of hand any system solution to societal problems? Of course, if one cannot see how it is the very system one is expected to support and approve of that creates these problems, then one can always use to old excuse: I followed orders, huh? How else could the wars of the elites that kill millions through the centuries be fought? The question comes up, “what if they ordered a war and nobody came?” Is it noble then to die in such wars while refusing to take personal responsibility for engaging and killing people because your masters declared them the enemy and their propaganda “proves” them right?
As a life-long dissenter I’ve always opposed war, all types of wars, on the basis that there is no such thing as a just war. But to the topic, does that make me more noble than those who fought in such wars and either died in them or survived, came home, and were left wondering what it was all about? I honestly don’t know but at least I know why I don’t know.
So I haven’t killed anyone in this life. But for many years I ate meat and fish. That required the killing of innocent creatures, some of which I participated in the killing and “dressing” myself. Are Earthians so exceptional that outside of master-mandated mass killing as in war, the killing of one Earthian is murder but the killing of a pig, a chicken or a salmon is just business and the eating of their meat considered a pleasure? Where did the idea we were more worthy of having our hides spared from the knife or gun? It is Earthians who are the destroyers, the insatiable predators and gratuitous killers. Their chosen prey are helpless creatures who suffer in atrocious conditions and die by the millions simply because they have no power to realize and break out of their enslavement.
OK, I’m a vegetarian now. Is that a more noble attainment? Until recently I thought so. But now, as I watch my hands handling that knife chopping up vegetables for salads, I “see” living things again being killed by my hand. Now here’s the problem: how far can one go in order to avoid any and all killing on this world? Based on the construct of these meat bodies, one would have to die. Sure, I’ve heard of “breatharianism” but I’ve seen no actual proof that such a lifestyle is sustainable. Our bodies aren’t made that way, though I know that some are… but not on this world.
My problem is “allowing” myself to think that my lifestyle is legitimate because it avoids the direct massacre of animals. My own hands aren’t clean. I still kill living things, mostly insects now but still, the need to take life from a living thing remains. That is a huge problem because it means I remain a predator. I still kill, or benefit from killing.
Therefore to this point, I remain tainted by the predatory mindset that plagues this particular world. Earthians as a rule accept that predation is the unavoidable and even pleasurable aspect of life on Earth. I suppose they conclude, if they even think about it, that it is how it is; unavoidable; necessary; granted from a divinity’s fiat or a “natural” requirement from some “evolutionary” process.
I can’t accept that any longer. I know too much now. I know, not just suspect but know, that predation, however expressed and for whatever reason, is always an illegitimate process, a tool of suppression, repression and enslavement. Even nature has to operate in cycles to keep a balance between prey and predator – it doesn’t maintain itself at a steady pace as you would expect. I don’t need to go into detail, we all know about the simple deer-wolf or rabbit-coyote cycles. As a crude and unreliable system, predation works for lack of a better way in worlds programmed with social injustice as their modus operandi.
I think that predation is at the core of all our mega social problems, including our current virus-o-phobia. Predation causes fear and fear creates a plethora of side effects, most of which we remain not-so-blissfully unaware of: blaming and scapegoating, of course. But it goes much deeper. It leads to paranoia which can cause genocidal tendencies. It leads to rape in men who fear they might miss out on their “allotted” sexual pleasure or release. It leads to religious bigotry and yes, misogyny and racism enter into that picture big time.
As a life-long dissident, I’m anti-almost-everything that society chooses to indulge in, including totalitarian fascism and fake democracies. I reject state-enforced mass medical treatments such as vaccines, drugs and of course “the endless war.” I despise patriotism or any fawning after ruling authorities and powers, hence I don’t vote and I’m not a fan. Time and again I’ve been the “enemy” of my society for not joining in the predatory fun as perpetrator or victim. Maybe there is some “nobility” in that, I don’t know, but what I do know is that Earth and her Earthian problems are irresolvable as long as homo sapiens resides here, as a species, as a collective, as an all-controlling predatory force. It’s a question of ability or desire to engage in fundamental change of mind and “man” is loathe to do this.
Quote: “What bothered him [Pamir] – what eventually kept the young man awake at night – was the persistent and toxic idea that a human being could live for so long and see so much, yet despite standing on all that experience, he still couldn’t change his simplest nature. If that’s true, the boy realized, then we’re all doomed. Forever. – from “Marrow” by Robert Reed
But I know in my heart that isn’t true because I was able to change “my simplest nature” and become someone else than what I’d been. It was, for me, a mental evolution as drastic as a sea creature one day crawling up upon the land to live there. And while I was busy going through my processes of adaptation to this new person I didn’t have much time to think about the rest of the world’s problems. Background noise mostly. But as I got settled into my new life’s ways, as I started to look around and to listen those problems came crashing upon my shore in tidal waves. Now opened to compassion and a growing sense of empathy I am finding these last years almost unbearable, and there is no place to hide or shelter from any of it.
I think therefore that my final effort at ennobling my life, after turning away from my “little life” to a much broader one, is to finally and honestly give up on society, as a civilization; as a collective. Perhaps at the very end of this Earthian predatory cycle this world can be helped once again to regain its natural sanity. It’s a thought, not a pleasant one, but a thought nevertheless. Meanwhile, since my vision has changed from seeing only the forest to noticing individual trees I can focus on helping those individuals who come my way and can benefit from my knowledge and my skills. I will still walk in sorrow but there will be enough joy to make my last miles bearable.
Quote: “Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless.” – Leo Tolstoy
~Burning Woman~ 