Survival and living

The world is in a pretty serious mess. Have I said that already? Haven't we all said that already? Like about a trillion billion times? A day? heh. Quit trying to regenerate and sustain the planet, just surviving today is a tough enough challenge right? wrong!

When the word "survival" has become the dominant daily thought in the minds of the majority of earth's human inhabitants and the word  "living" gets relegated to fashion magazines and lifestyle pullouts in the trendier newspapers, Houston, we got a problem!

The problem arises when survival serves only itself and sadly, that seems to be a very specific, very mean wall that the peopled earth has hit. Survival for survival's sake is an animal trait not a human one. Any dumb animal can understand that.  And the primary weapon of attrition of said dumb animals? You got it! Competition! What do they compete for? Not a lot actually. Just two, specifically. They compete either for food or for mates. In their world, there are only two types of critters. Winners, and losers. In their world, there are only two types of mindsets - the frightened and the terrified. With such a charming basis for existence, there is little wonder that all their talk is based on variations of hissing, spiting, barking, snarling, growling, roaring, shrieking and whimpering. All they can do is either pounce on food or get pounced on as food, or pounce on mates or be pounced on as mates.

 Rather alarmingly, although not surprisingly, over the last four centuries, human beings too seem to have voted for this particular form of existence. In order to engineer this miracle of digression from human to animal, they have had to systematically weed out every single positive attribute that sets human beings apart from animals, enhance every single negative attribute that evens out that mind-power-skill differential between humans and animals and acquire as many traits commonly associated with animals as it is possible for a human body to grab on to, hold and internalize.

Animals know no better. We are supposed to. However, look around you. When was the last time a complete stranger argued a point with you with the goal of reaching a mutually rewarding third space? When was the last time a complete stranger hissed, spat, growled and roared in your face to ensure that her point was made? I can't clearly remember any incident that falls into the former category but I see incidents of the later category on a nauseatingly regular basis. When we add the killing and the thieving, the lying and the cheating to the hissing and the spitting, the trampling and the winning, we have a pretty terrifying and seriously toxic social environment to live in don't we? Yet, instead of knowing it for what it is... a poisonous, caustic rot that is melting away our flesh and eating away at our very souls... we laud it. We celebrate it. We scream in favor of it in every arena of real or imagined contention with fanatic fervor and gladiatorial zeal. In fact, from board game to war game, from bed room to board room, from street drama to street trauma, a very large percentage of global intellectual and emotional effort seems to go into actually creating the sort of environments where such dark activities thrive.

Over four centuries, empowered by the material sciences and energized by greed, these people, driven by an insatiable desire to control and to conquer, have acquired, through the exercise of supreme effort and the application of intense one pointed focus on survival, the right to struggle, the right to strive, the right to anger, the right to hatred, the right to jealousy, the right to fight, the right to fright, the right to suffering. In short, the right to being an animal. Through this process, they have gradually revoked their right to decorous treatment, the right to equitable sharing, the right to trust, the right to honorable engagement, the right to contentment, the right to happiness.Hallelujah!

Now, what is the upshot of this need on the part of every Jonah to be better than every Jones? What is the result of every crabgrass in the garden wanting to be an azalea? What is the end  of everyone attempting to hitch their wagons to a star? The world’s end, that's what. This planet is kaput and running on fumes because there isn't much else to run it on. Most of its fuel is currently either in private holdings or in private banks you see.

Private, I emphasis. Private? I ask you!

How come a species whose very existence is defined by its requirement to collectivize, harmonize and mutually energize end up using that word “private” as a basis for its very existence? The non-sequitur would be amusing if it were not so downright dangerous for the ...you got it... survival of the human race.

I am not known for perspicuity but let me try to be less obtuse and verbose.

In order for the race to survive, individuals must stop attempting  to survive. 

This is indeed a tough call for most. 400 years of practice going the opposite way is at best, going to die harder than Bruce Willis. That practice will not go gently into that good night. Instead, it will rage, rage, against the dying of the light. The light is almost done but that night? Its a sure thing. Believe me. The survivors have paid up in full through their thoughts and actions and this unpretty Medusa is their's for the duration of that very long night. There is no point in games of romance and seduction nor much use in engaging in nasty-tricksy shield play. There is no protection against either the darkness of the night or the deadliness of its iffy inhabitants. This outcome has a 100% probability. You can bet your entire estate and all of your your illegal stash of numbered accounts on it. Frightened? Oh come on guys! You are not working hard enough. Be terrified, petrified, and atrophied. *laff*

A question should be niggling in your minds by now. Is there anyone... but anyone... who walks the path less trodden? Who amongst us, give's a rat's bum that the race should preserve? Are there any who have unhitched their wagons from the stars? Where can they be found, the non-greedy, the un-frightened? How do they fair, those amongst us who can still righteously claim to be human?

Well, for starters, they live. To do so, there are a few preconditions. A few provisos. A couple of quid-pro-quo. They must be selfless, not selfish. They must be self-giving, not self-serving. They must subsume individual gain for collective good. They must both give and give-in. Each, among their own peers (and I don't classify those who live life to survive as peers of those who live life to live) will always vote for the other's view. They cannot be fans of raging against anything. Night is a word they know of only vaguely since they have never walked in anything but light.

Even unasked, they state their own faults and if asked, they would state their own faults without hesitation, in great detail, with no omissions. They will not state another's faults if unasked, and even if asked, they would state them with hesitation, with marginal detail and with many omissions. They will, even unasked, reveal what is praiseworthy in others and if asked, they would reveal what is praiseworthy in others without hesitation, in great detail, with no omissions. They will not state their own praiseworthy qualities unasked and even if asked, they will reveal their own praiseworthy qualities with hesitation, with marginal detail and with many omissions (Tripitaka: Anguttara fours:73).

Where does this set of baselines lead a person who drives forward from that foundation? Well, they are rather amused by this populist theory of winners and losers. They are neither competitors nor winners nor losers. When they have shared what is on their plates with whoever wants it before feeding themselves, they do not feel like winners or losers. They simply feel like humans.

The question is "Do such people exist?" Short answer? Yes. In Sri Lanka, I know of 200 such. In the world, perhaps 50,000 such (roughly about 0.00007% of the earth's  population). Now, these beings, these humans living in human frames as opposed to animals living in human frames are very much a minority. Surely there are more out there? Well, not really. There are about a 500 million more who think that they are like the 50,000 but are merely hoodwinking themselves. These are the religionists who blindly adhere to the various factions contending for a monopoly on truth such as Science, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism etc. They are even more dangerous for the world in some senses than those who are in a proto-animal state of existence. That group religionists are responsible for a substantial part of the belligerence swirling in a life-choking smog around the planet these days.

Long rumination. With such a minority rooting for the survival of the human race, do they have even a ghost of a chance? Of course they do. Such people exist at a very low level of energy and they tread light upon the world, down a path considered nutty by most. They have a unique and critical ability - they can absorb high energy states such as those that are radiating from the religionists and proto-animals. The story of Lot and Sodom comes to mind whether true or not. "If you can find 10 people like you, I will save your city". In a city of thousands, that's all it takes. In a world of billions, a few thousand decent men and women can still keep the planet afloat. Knowing them personally, I know that they work, ceaselessly, night and day, without R&R for precisely that.

Once, not too long ago, I watched a friend outline these thoughts to a mutual acquaintance. Her response? You are abnormal. Both of you. You are completely insane. You don't fight. You don't get angry. You don't back-stab. You don't do what it takes to "get-ahead". You are not selfish enough to survive. True. He didn't  contest this take at all, merely telling her, softly, gently, "its ok friend, my clan such as it is, will continue to live abnormal, insane lives so that you have at least a 'fighting chance' to continue to live normal, sane ones".

She hasn't spoken to either of us since. *smiles*

(Please do buy and watch, Tom Shadyac's 2011 documentary "I AM" which echos many of my own thoughts, facts and suspicions on this little matter of survival. A few religiously shuttered windows would open out for you and give you a vision of vistas hitherto unsuspected by most. Trust me :)  Below is the trailer:)

Technology and Techno-jolly

Technology is the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. Succinct though that is, it can be further synthesized / generalized into this phrase: "applying knowledge to practice". Let the high ho tech be, it is a generalization that is applicable even to the merest of know-how required to say... clean a drain quickly and well, the technology of a coconut ekel broom to help the process along and the efficient application of that technology to the actual practice of de-gunking a cluttered waste-channel.

This is the only area where human effort differs from that of animals. Human beings do this consciously and therefore there are no real limits to either the application or the practice of technology. The majority of animals have no clue what on earth technology is. Only a very small number (primate species and pachyderms primarily) display the conscious use of rudimentary technology. Regardless of whether it is scientific knowledge or otherwise, human being score over animals in their inherent ability to engage with and change such conditions as are presented to them in order to optimize physical comfort, acquire body inputs, engage in social activity , obtain knowledge , increase individual and collective security  and minimize external threat.

From the FLINTSTONES to F.R.I.E.N.D.S., from  hand-held fans to ceiling fans, from water harvesting to water-fowl harvesting, from travelling to meet others in carts to travelling to meet others in cars, from running up a banner informing people Guy Fawkes will die at dawn to running down a book that analyses the history of that execution, from threatening an individual with an arrowhead to threatening a nation with a warhead, to constructing a house to neutralize one's fear of nameless threats to constructing a holocaust for the same purpose, one thing has been quite clear: technology, if it has any relevance, is in the physical output of its application to the human life-dynamic.

 Now, with the advent of information and communications technology, that status-quo has changed - somewhat. Grin. Starting from the very basic level where the mouth as the primary communications tool has been replaced by fingers, by gradations, wave maps have removed the requirement for musical instruments, pixel ink droppers have removed the requirement for real ink palettes, teleconferences have removed the requirement for Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, Googling has removed the requirement for libraries/ GP diagnostics/ prescriptions/ mechanical repair experts and what else not, virtual memorials have removed the requirement to say a verbal goodbye to the dead, eating a pizza on an instant messenger has replaced the need for a convivial meeting at a restaurant, thought transmission at the instant of thought formation has replaced thought consideration and thought qualification before thought publication and alpha-wave generation as an outcome of physical fornication has been replaced by a virtual option that removes the need for either fluid exchange, human regeneration or disease transmission.

Kewl? ya bet! ROFLMAO. If I were ten years younger, I'd GNOC online with a rumba for my 1174 on 121 to celebrate and underscore the sheer thrill of it all. Granted, some of them might hit 911 to complain about um...my physical display of a 511 but still, AFAIAC, IDGAF. Smoochies! 459! Think I actually like the brainless way in which this new abbrevationese or netese has replaced Shakespeare? betcha!

Or betcha not more like it. Those two preceding paras was certainly true after a fashion. Sure, we can assign it some truth value given a very specific framework of engagement. However, let us not kid ourselves. It is not true for all frameworks of engagement and, when its life itself that we are considering, validity of a process for a limited spectrum of human living is, to all intents and purposes, useless.

Within the engagement window of so called "soft pursuits" such as thinking,  knowing, creating artwork, writings and music, social engagement, conviviality, sharing of emotional states and gratification of sexual urges, nothing, repeat, nothing, beats the emerging technologies. Indeed, at the mundane, materialist end of the spectrum of human experience, these technologies allow a very large percentage of human being to feed on, taste and absorb some of the most powerfully positive states of mind known to mankind. States of mental and emotional goodness that were earlier exclusively in the domain of a privileged few. If there is any base, crude, material joy in this world, now, more than ever, experiencing them has become almost completely democratic. No wonder people are thrilled. So much so that "technologies" as a word has become synonymous with "technojollies". So much so that instead of asking an online support person to "tell me what improvements there are in the technology" people have become used to asking "explain the new technojollies to me please". Or, in accepted parlance, instead of "What are the new TLGs" they will ask "What are the new TJLs".

All well and good but why is this tragic? Simple. All of this is pure mind-stuff. Despite this change in the relevance of technology from practical purposes to mental purposes  giving large swaths of people a whole load of jollies not entirely unlike the plethora of recreational drugs, it  has one, very serious drawback in terms of why human beings, differentiated from animals, use technology.

These new techs cannot either optimize physical comfort or minimize external threats.

In fact, they frequently have the opposite effect. Spending years staring at screens has a physical result of significantly weakening bodies since bodies are irrelevant to the application of new technologies. Additionally, such pursuits substantially reduces the ability of human beings to recognize or respond to external physical threats from every kind of predator with every kind of agenda to every kind of hunger with every kind of intensity. An entire generation is growing up with little know-how on how to clean a drain, plant a potato or use a martial art just to name a microcosm of the total skills set and technologies required to ensure personal, family, collective or national well being. Survival with technojollies? possibly, sure, in a twilight zone. Well being? no way.

STRANGER DANGER IS REAL - FOR VIRTUALLY ENABLED, PRACTICALLY DISABLED NUTLOOSKIES.
THOSE MASKED FRIGHTS ARE CALLED PEOPLE DUDE, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING 

At some point in the not-too-distant future, these beings, merely inhabiting human frames, knowing little and caring less about the constituent components of a quality human being, recognizing excellence only in a person's gaming ability, understanding human existence only in the number of formless beings that appear on their friends lists, caring nothing about how much they stink since smell cannot be transmitted via electronics with all the goodwill in the world, recognizing threats only in terms of what is fed to them through a gazillion blogs, knowing how to navigate three airports with a baby only to that extent that they have managed to get such information off the "virtual connectivity continuum", seeings nothing much, hearing even less, cognizant of environments but not at all, fearful and suspicious of any and all who look their ways, terrified of the next person who says "hello" to them at a bus stop, these non-being beings, will, have, to, deal with the fact that there is a very big chance that civilization will be instantly destroyed. Why?

Because no one really knew how to clean a headset properly and the resulting viral pandemic ended up wiping out the entire human race off the face of the earth.

This is neither a bad thing nor a good thing. It is just a thing. From all that I see, hear and understand from checking out the world in this kick-ass-here-and-now-pesky-inconvenient-touchy-feely-reality, even these things will fade, as all things fade, as all things fall, as all things part, as all things cease.

It doesn't make for an overall feeling of "goodness" of course but in defense of TJLs, nothing, but nothing, can actually feel good for any significant length of time regardless of whether or not the source of that goodness is mental or physical, virtual or real, theoretical or practical. It is not as if this is completely  unknown to human beings. On the contrary, they are all, at least to some vague extent, aware of this condition. Three movies clearly indicate this by their popularity.

1. The Matrix trilogy: Human beings are pretty worried about the status they are in and would like to believe that the entire universe is all a virtual reality that has been pulled over their eyes from which dream state they expect to wake up at any moment.
2. The Harry Potter series: How thrilling it would be if this dream state is actually the real state and the culmination of that status is the ability to conjure up food or destroy an enemy with just the wave of an S-pen or stylus. 
3. The Hunger games: Ok. So it was all a dream. But wow! How great and cosy it would be to go back to the middle ages? 

Well, yes, the universe is a dream state that one pulls over one's own eyes and which we in the east called maya, and yes, in that dream state, with a bit of mental concentration quite familiar to us in the east, food, enemies and other such matters can be dealt with summarily and yes, to us in the east, the stone age is not all that far into the future given the fact that most of the powers that be believe that its ills can be wiped out with a few jabs at the touch screen of an iPhone.

For those rare non-initiates, below are the meanings of Netese words used in this post (I prefer not to call them abbreviations since they are, to all intents and purposes, an actual language. Yeah, its got word roots, a grammar, syntax and semantic rules all of its own): 

ROFLMAO: Rolling on the floor, laughing my a*** off
GNOC: Get naked on camera
1174:Nude club (I really don't know the root of this word)
121: One to one 
911: Well, everyone knows this is the scream for help - LOL  (laugh out loud)
511: Too much information (one dials 411 for information, add one to it and you get too much information) 
AFAIAC: As far as I am concerned
IDGAF: I don't give a f***
459: I love you (the numbers correspond to the letters "I", "L" and "Y" on a standard cellphone keypad)

For a fairly comprehensive list (and since this is a living language unlike English, it is constantly changing), click here! 

(This post was triggered by a forward from my father. The pictures are from that forward -captions mine- with this quote from Albert Einstein "I fear the day when our technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots". Well, folks, its not that bad as in absolutely bad, its only relatively bad when compared with all the other bads of the world. Also, idiocy is not solely the result of technology. Science in general in its substantive entirety has had a far more encompassing role to play in the manufacture of consent for sheer dumbness of the modern subset of "good" ideas) 

Finally - The Gospel according to Jesus

Ok folks. That last post must have riled at least some of you. I do not apologize. I cannot. Because if I do, I will compromise my Lord Jesus Christ and I will never do that. However, do take note of the fact that riling up people never was and never will be the reason why I think, speak, act ... or write. If you got het-up, well, look within yourself for the reason because people mostly get angry at people they are forced to lie to. If you were riled up, you certainly were not the first. In fact, most Christians I did air my thoughts to from time to time got um... rather heated ... to put it mildly. Their best argument was that I was a "Buddhist" (I never was a religionist so I cannot have possibly been a "ist" anything but anyway). I was, to them, an outsider looking in. What could I do? Zilch. As time wore on and age mellowed me, I spoke less and acted more. Until a couple of days ago when I posted my testimony of sorts. Now, why did I suddenly become brave enough to do that?

Because an insider, a follower of Jesus, has come forward, speaking and acting in precisely that way. A set of videos of some sessions he had in Sri Lanka made their way into my hands a day after Vesak day - very significant ... and ... thanks be to Jesus and his follower Indira.

Here are snippets from the words of this most remarkable man (The yay-haloos of course are mine): 

I want unity among denominations and I do not come pre-loaded with messages. You see, Jesus didn't go through all that he went through on the cross just so we could do church. He paid too high a price for us to engage in churches which are nothing more than social clubs.

Now, the church has created a theology to justify the lack of power they walk in and compromised their belief system to fit their experiences. Why? Well, we have created a justification for the lack of power that we walk in, because surely the problem can't be us, so we begin to shift the emphasis of the Gospel, we begin to to fit it to our experience as opposed to what The Word of the Lord said and in doing so, we have compromised The Word of the Lord and the standard that he has set for us.

I do not apologize for preaching an uncompromized gospel. One thing that I refuse to do is adjust my belief system based upon my experience. Instead, I will lift my experience and keep my experience as to what the word of the lord said. Due to lack of results of what we see, we pull the word of God to our experience and now we wonder why we do not see the power of God displayed throughout our lives.

woo-BINGO! 

Jesus came to reveal the exact nature of the Father and he uses every situation but he doesn't create every situation. He did not ever give us sickness in order to build our character. Jesus never blessed sickness either. If I treated my children the way the church thinks God treats us, I would be arrested and locked up. The image of a cruel father is what is promoted by the church today.

However, every storm he walked into, Jesus calmed. Jesus Christ is perfect theology. He clears up all the misunderstandings of the old testament and reveals the true nature and the heart of the father.

He said, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and preach the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 10). Yet, o much of the church says "pray for the sick". It says "heal the sick". And it says, preach the gospel of the kingdom. Yet we think it says, "preach the gospel of salvation". Salvation is encompassed within the Kingdom. The gospel of salvation emphasizes "us going up". But the gospel of the Kingdom emphasizes bringing heaven down.

Our destiny is heaven. But are assignment is to bring it down to earth.

Attaboy! 

As long as we are crying out to him to come back and save us from the mess that the world is in, he won't come. We have this mentality that God is in control. God is in charge, certainly, but we are in control. I don't want to get to heaven and find that I could have had me a little heaven on earth.

In Matthew 5:16 he says "I am the light of the world". However, when he left he said, you are the light of the world, now, go do something with it.

I refuse to compromise for a powerless Christianity or adjust my theology because of my powerlessness. God is sovereign, but in his sovereignty he put us in control. And yet, because we do not see a manifestation of the kingdom on earth, I refuse to live of life where I am going to pick up the carpet of God's sovereignty, sweep it under and say "well I guess god is sovereign at the end of the day" and put the carpet back down. That is not the model that Jesus actually set for us. Arise, shine. For your light has come.

We cannot wait for God to show up or  try to find god. God is here, because you are here. He is trapped in the lives of unbelieving believers. And he wants out. I am not sitting waiting for his return. To pray for that is one of the most selfish prayers we can have.

Heaven is in us. We should not command the darkness to leave. Instead, we should turn on the light.

wow! oh... just ... WOW! 

Turn the "Kingdom not yet" to the "Kingdom now". In Luke 17:21 he says "the kingdom of  god is at hand". It is within... not in the stratosphere.

Ok folks... finally, the untrammeled message of the basis for clear sighted faith. Lets GO. lets DO IT. For ourselves and our planet.