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Join Date: Jan 2006 | one perspective -
06-13-06
I’m tired. It’s probably the low serotonin levels in my brain. So, the eastern sages would say. Or at least, so I can quote them from sources upon sources of books that quote them and their findings and teachings. The same goes for the results of scientific tests on brain chemistry performed by scientists all around the world. Mostly western scientists at that, I should add. Publishing their findings in academic journals and popular science magazines, or even popular culture magazines such as Time, we are open to this dissemination of wonderful information.
Therefore, it must be true. Or at least, more credible than other hypotheses. Or more credible than certain cultures that have existed and thrived and flourished and most importantly, exist, to this day with their own separate belief system. Their needs do not encompass flying to the moon, increasing penis size, wearing 17 pounds of makeup to attract sex, curing cancer, rescuing cats from trees and etc, etc.
Why must we, in this ‘thriving industrial’ world of our “collective” sense of realities (realities formed by stomping out the competition through whatever means necessary) exist in such a manner? I’m not about to listen to vague theories dressed up in pseudo-intellectual format (since I could do the same thing) from people since most don’t really know what they’re talking about when they open their mouths on such issues. In the case of this text, none of it will reach the eyes of certain audiences (not higher ones, if you have such pompous thoughts) in which case I would be using language befitting them. The point of this is a catharsis, of sorts. Perhaps a discussion that might ensue, although, that might be a little hedonistic of me…
People in our society tend to do what they want because their sense of freedom enables them to do so, which in turn, justifies any action they feel they have a right to take. Elitists in our society have also become more and more obscure, hiding behind sonorous diglossia and the ‘lay people’ become more and more disenchanted with the idea of informing themselves -- merely content with the idea that what they want will be attainable if they work hard enough and the rest of the world can go eat itself. (Bear in mind that both parties are ignorant incarnate of their own accord. Education doesn’t dispel ignorance – compassion does). People are also so many more things that it’s not really worth listing anyway. People like you or me already have these perceptions built into our brains. Psychology, basic social theory and our parents tell us that we tend to react to these perceptions through behavior that we have grown up with and into and therein, are less likely to change whether we are comfortable with what we have grown into or not.
But, lets backtrack a little. One of the forgotten ones I’ve left out are the middle people. The messenger, the artist, the anonymous, the givers.
This does not mean ‘diplomat’ or ‘agent’ or ‘politician’ or any role played out on behalf of another. These titles are roles that carry a level of deference, meaning the way in which a person acts towards someone else in order to fulfill a level of respect or accountability – but ultimately as a symbol of some formal system (government, church, political alignment, cult, etc).
I will call the middle people “givers”. In a sense, my little thesis here is a public (therefore, less jargon and academic riff-raff) argument against the “selfish” and the justifications of such “natural human state”.
If all of this has led you to lose your head as to where this is going, it will quickly become clear as the tone of this textual discourse moves from tired to combative. When my stance moves from pretending that everything is tidy between these two parties and proclaiming my statement that not all actions carry the taints that others do, you will see my position. The others in this case being the ‘takers’, the ‘selfish’, the ‘glory fiends’ and so forth.
First, there are certain words in this that could always be debated. In taking a stance, I’ve always found it’s best to be clear where one stands in the spectrum of debate. I’ve also found that regardless of how the two parties feel and think at the end of the argument, there’s usually a level of mutual respect for maintaining certain rules, especially the unspoken ones. That being said, I realize that certain words thus far like “taint” and “glory fiends” are accusations, and can be construed as inflammatory statements made against my opposite. An opposite that I cannot co-exist with because of such polar thought patterns that distance us, right? Right.
Well, I don’t believe that. And that’s the crux of the plight of the giver. The giver gives even to those that would take all from him/her. The giver gives because that is the nature of their existence. The giver, like the taker is also selfish at times. But, we must question to what degree. It’s a moral question. A question of balance. Most importantly, a question of Compromise.
The selfish people would argue that morals are useless and rigid beliefs (until they are hurt by those very lack of morals) and perhaps demand more flexibility in our system or world we live in to better suit the goals of “all people” without thinking of how a system might be created in the first place, I might add. The selfish, you see, do not believe they are selfish. That’s the most dangerous thing about selfish creatures. And it’s instilled in all of us but that’s why once it is realized how we perform our own selfish actions, it should be one of the human goals to eliminate such a taint, or better, to control it. Contrary to this, the flaw of the giver tends to play the role of the foolish martyr. The balance is found only when the giver lives up to the ideal of giving, giving, giving. Giving it all away until death finds him/her and smiles oh-so-neutrally and the giver realizes that the ideal was ultimately all vain. The ideal became the vain reality and perhaps a tragic story might come of it at best. This doesn’t change anything, of course. Life continues to feed on life and life continues to give birth to life. Moving through life knowing such a thing and how we act upon it is perhaps what is important here.
Ask yourself this: who do you respect? What is respect to you? Do you find that your relationships with your family, your friends, your significant other, your work associates, etc all balance out in the end? Do you find that you hate or love any of these people to uncontrollable degrees? Do you find that you have obscure definitions for everything you tend to disagree with? Do you find that you only form relations with people because you want to attain certain goals? Do you find that your relations tend to disintegrate as soon as your ideals/desires are challenged? Do you find that the relations you were born into (family for one) force you to reject what you think and feel are important to you? Do you see that you are the only problem in this equation? Do you?
I have always respected my teachers. I have always respected and even slaved myself to my parents as best I could. I have always been heralded as a good, compassionate and thoughtful and seemingly most important to them – an understanding friend. I have always been thought of by all as such an intelligent person, capable of maneuvering myself through any discussion with some sort of ease and wit as an added bonus. These are all things that I have been told that are within my character and more important, my deference and demeanor. My very actions speak these things, not shallow words as you see before you. Yet, I stand before the mirror and I see an abused person. My flaw is that my beliefs have been corroded. They have been next to destroyed. I am sure that many people would also make such a claim, therefore, we are not special cases. Our pain is not special. It never was and it never should be viewed as such.
Abuse makes things personal nonetheless. There is no learning from abuse. No one needs to teach someone that they don’t need abuse in their life. Through abuse, one only suffers. And, whoever might justify their abusive actions or patterns of thought; for once, I fall short in understanding completely. I have an exquisite memory – ask any of my friends, really! This memory is somewhat of the photogenic sort, so it’s not a biased memory. This means that when I remember something, I remember the details of it while the interpretations remain open to constant speculation and symbolism. In any case, my memory gives me an obvious advantage over others, in a sense. It also is a curse at the same time in terms of certain psychological/emotional/whatever trauma. So, my memory recalls a time when my abuser told me that our bond should end because of the obvious abuse that I seemed to solely recognize/feel/think. I was told that the abuse that I felt was not abuse, but a flaw in my pattern of thought, my emotional blindness, etc, etc. Sounds like abuse itself, non? My feelings for my abuser at this time were so deep, but stood as a dichotomy as to what this person stood for as their own separate identity. To my thoughts, however, I understood that my abuser convinced him/herself that he/she could somehow escape the fact that he/she was not an abusive person on a general level. To them, it was only this relation carried between the two of us; that my justifications were ultimately circumstantial and therefore, a lost case, where the only loss would be the (ultimately) healthy break of said bond.
Certain relations affect people for the rest of their lives. For example, if my father beat me near to death, the notion of “father” and “abuse” might very well carry me to the end of my days. I never once in my life endorsed being controlled by the abuse brought on by others (being a victim) but I never endorsed running away from the important ties between people in the vain hope that things fix themselves through time (being a coward). Time only heals wounds if there is time (energy) invested into fixing those wounds. Some wounds are very specific and some people will never give a piece of themselves for the sake of the ones they abused in order to fix that. That is something that I would constitute as a sense of loss. A loss with gravity to it, if you will.
In a sense, there are two kinds of people in this world. Ones that get to tell their story, and others that do not. Regarding this topic, most are silenced (through abusive discourse of so many varying degrees) and it is this silence that I stand against. I am not an activist, although I am an artist that fancies anonymity. And neither am I an idealist with radical endeavors. It is not my intent to slot myself into a category that diminishes anyone’s sense of beliefs and goals (goals defined as ‘dreams with effort’). However, I am proposing that those that silently find themselves falling into any of the categories that I might have listed and subtly attached a level of shame to them to ask yourself one thing: how did you get to where you have gotten thus far? Justify yourself to yourself and you are only a coward. Justify yourself to the relations you have had a part in breaking (for whatever reason) and manage to walk away with balanced reciprocity being felt and acknowledged from both sides and you have truly embodied balance and harmony itself. A simple analogy: someone once expressed a view to me once that the Japanese kanji character of “person” can easily be remembered and learnt if one understands that the longer stroke represents you and the second stroke is one that is supporting (lifting, carrying, caring for, etc) you. As people, we are always in need of others. Individualism is one thing, the self-absorbed are another. As people, if we break certain relations that carry certain titles for the cause of something else that is seemingly greater, we have failed ourselves and others as people. What is a greater goal than this?
So I ask from the perspective of a giver. |
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