Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act V Scene V
Well, no. Sorry, campers...not going to examine city-building and "civilization" and why protestant Xianity is to blame for nasty, unfortunate things like the Industrial Revolution and stufflikethatthere. Nope. Gonna do something a bit diff this time around. And I had a long blog post last time and I'm going to have mercy. The anti-civilization blog will probably be a two-parter, too. Taking down Babylon brick by brick is no easy task. So no, that comes later. Now comes this:
Imagine a wooden rocking chair. Just picture one in your mind. Give it as much detail as you want, etc. The rocking chair I'm imaging is a big one, the type they sell at Cracker Barrel, painted Tennessee Volunteer orange. I know it's a wooden rocking chair because the words wooden, rocking and chair all define what I am seeing and I know what the words wooden, rocking and chair put together describe. Language allows me to recognize something by it's shape, etc because we have categorized reality with these defining words.
Beyond the immediate image of the big orange wooden rocking chair I can further describe it by it's size, weight and other physical characteristics. Like maybe I can see some of the wood grain even though it's painted orange. And then there is all the history of the chair. How it got there, who made it, the whole process that went into making the chair...the type of wood it's made of, the machinery and tools that were used to make it, the people all involved in the process. And then there is the history of chairs itself, when we first started making chairs and when we first figured out if they could rock...well, that would rock. Think about your chair in these terms, all the descriptive terms you could employ and all the backstory you could give it.
Now I'm going to take an axe to it. Chop chop chop. Until it's little jagged bits of wood. Where is the chair? If I wanted to, and had enough time and wood glue, I could maybe put the chair back together again. I recognize the bits of wood as what the chair used to be. So I'll put the jagged bits of wood in a wood chipper. The wood is still there, so I'll now burn it until there's nothing but ash...and I'll take this up into an airplane and dump it out over the Atlantic ocean.
Where is the chair now?
It doesn't exist does it? Wrong. In my mind is the memory of the chair. And I can go to Cracker Barrel and maybe see a chair just like it. Or have them order me one. So let's say Mars Attacks! and they beam up all our wimmin and all our chairs. Every single friggin' chair and every single whoaman...because, y'know...Mars Needs Women and Chairs. Even now, we still have the memory of chairs. We could make chairs again, because the memory of the chair exists even if the chair...and the women do not. And even if we could not make chairs again, the memory of them would persist in our minds, until a future generation forgets chairs altogether. The memory of the chair is more real than an actual physical chair.
But we cannot make women. We have the memory of women, but we can't just order more from the factory. Then think of humanity in general. And that while we can make a bunch of chairs, we can't make people. And then, just like the chair you imagined is different from my chair, everyone of us is different. There have never been two people ever on this planet that were the same. Because we are each individual expressions of consciousness, we are each a different mind, unique, special. *G*O*D* don't make no junk. We are not born bad or evil or doomed, we are each a unique mirror that the cosmos holds up so it can admire how fascinating and beautiful it is. We are so much more important than chairs.
Now consider that all physical matter is made from empty space, the atoms that matter is made of. The physical universe is continually in a state of flux, of change...it is an illusion, a hologram made by energy that vibrates at a slow enough speed. Nothing is real, everything is true. Only the mind is real and we cannot prove via science that it exists, although we all know we have a mind. Consciousness, something that defies a scientific explanation, is the only constant. The only concrete and permanent thing.
When a person dies, whether they died in their sleep, or were pushed into a wood chipper...that person will not appear again. One brief candle flame and whoosh...gone, never to darken our towels again. We are all different, single facets on the immense diamond of human experience, we wink once when the light hits us and then we are not there anymore. Yet we are remembered by those we leave behind, the memory of us persists and certain people cast long shadows after their "death." John Lennon would have been 70 years old now, and his memory persists in us now, whether you liked him or not...he still affects our consciousness. He is 70 years old now, but he will always look young. Joan Rivers needed plastic surgery to pull that off, the dirty cheater.
John Lennon is a god. John Wayne is a god. Marilyn Monroe is a goddess. JFK is a god...etc. These people have reached their apotheosis...have reached godhood in our minds as they, being dead and gone...are not gone at all. It doesn't matter if John Lennon can appear before you with all the Hollywood special effects or not, atheists, John Lennon is ALIVE in our minds still. Having a conversation now with John Lennon may be a fiction, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Lennon, Wayne, Monroe, Kennedy, etc...these people have become ideas, they represent so much more than just that they were once alive and are now dead. They are now more alive than they were when they could actually sit in a chair.
And now think of those in your life you loved who are gone. Are they gone in your mind? No? They are still alive. You keep them alive. Some of you have shrines in your homes to them, as you still display photos and other objects of their lives. Because what we actually are are MINDS, we are linked to our bodies, but we are minds, expressions of consciousness that is not just the chemical and neurological side-effects that our body generates. We are invisible beings, we do not exist and yet we do. You cannot see your mind, but it is really all that you are. Your brain and the rest of the nervous system is a receiver and a transmitter of consciousness and your body is how your mind is moved from place to place, usually, and your body allows you to interact with your environment, nothing more. And when we are burned and our ash is spread over the ocean the memory of us will persist, who we were. People will remember your face, but what they are actually remembering is your mind.
No, Macbeth, you Nazi shithead...live does signify something, it signifies much. And we are the epitome of intelligent life. We are the bomb. Words fail us to describe what we are and words just serve to limit us into categories: white, male, American, long-haired, progressive, sexy, eccentric, sexy, handsome, artistic, sexy, near-sighted, etc. We limit ourselves with these labels when we shouldn't.
We can call a chair a chair, but how much more description goes into describing who YOU are, when you will be the only you who ever exists. How can we fill such a void as that? How can we dare to put ourselves in boxes and limit ourselves and let others control who and what we should be, what we should think? Free your mind, the rest will follow. Drag yourself out of the mud and slime of ideology and prejudice and circumstance and all the limitations and definitions, pull your ego down around your ankles and walk out of it and become borderless, immense, walk the earth like a giant...you'll then realize the only real sin is to not become all you could be, to settle for living in a safe, narrow box when you could spread yourself over the earth like a sunset. The solar system is your rocking chair and the earth is your footstool.
We are all divine, we are how nature expresses itself. We are the narrator of the universe's story. We take on roles on this ephemeral stage, say a few lines and then we make our exit, some of us are in the the lead roles, some of us are extras, but we are all important. We are angels with dirty faces because our faces are covered with meat...but we are alive, invulnerable, immortal, our mind/soul/spirit exists temporally while linked with our bodies and when the organic structure we inhabit no longer functions, when the rocking chair our mind rests in is no more, we will persist and continue and be alive. And we will still rock.
Like the Police song goes... We are spirits in the material world.
WE ARE GODS
Selah
Beautifully expressed. Have I told you lately that I love you?
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