What then?

When no matter how big or small you think, you don't want to be anywhere.

When you've deconstructed god, not because you wanted to, but because you needed something that could hold up to scrutiny.

When you can see the nets we've woven around ourselves as a society, with all its tangles and all its holes. How comfortable it can make us, as long as we don't look too hard at what it's made of. And for goodness sake, don't struggle against it. Don't even talk about it.

When lies and lies and lies have been told. All in the form of I love you. Over and Over. When that doesn't mean I won't turn my back on you forever in a second.

When you find the good people, the few that remain after the fire and you are not like them, and it makes you feel more lonely than ever.

Turning back the clock, or why choosing to become landed peasants is a political statement

It has often seemed to me that in modern society we have replaced one external locus of control in religion, for another in corporate capitalism. The mechanisms are different, but many of the results are similar, that we as a people submit to the idea that someone 'out there' has the right and power to influence our existence, often more than we do ourselves. I began wondering if there are ways we really could move towards independence and true self determination while fulfilling our need for community. I thought about the ways that this external locus of control has made me uncomfortable in the past and what I was motivated to do about it.

An example I thought of was something that doesn't seem very political at all - a glass of water. It started off as conservation, I didn't want to be responsible for water shortages, or the need for another super dam and all of it's environmental ramifications. But it became more than that. I'd been doing some reading on flouride, and chlorine, and realised that no matter what my conclusions were on their relative safety, I couldn't do anything about it anyway. I didn't like the ownership a corporation had over the water falling from the sky, and who could have it, and for how much. I even heard that some water corporations were examining ways they could charge people for collecting water from their own roofs if they were in their designated catchment. However I felt about it, I was powerless, one small voice in a highly centralised system. And this was with regards to something that was central to me, in fact making up over 70% of my body. The payoff was of course, I did not have to take responsibility for the quantity or quality of that water. In this case I could, with a great deal of expense and fighting with said corporation, take that responsibility on myself, which I did. But what if we reach a point where we can't?

“It seems to me a very good thing, in theory as well as practice, that there should be a body of citizens primarily concerned in producing and consuming … that there should be in the community a sort of core not only of simplicity but of completeness… But there would be somewhere in the centre of civilization a type that was truly independent; in the sense of producing and consuming within its own social circle. I do not say that such a complete human life stands for a complete humanity. But I do say that this man who supplies his own needs is very much needed. I say it largely because of his absence from modern civilization, that modern civilization has lost unity.” – G. K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 1926

Then I made the connection that a particular arm of the environmental movement, often called 'urban homesteading' is as much a political statement, as it is a practical, green lifestyle choice. I like planting a carrot because of all the externalised, corporately infrastructure I'm NOT using to do so. Consistent, universal supply is great (if one allows the remain hidden the true cost of such a system), but let's not allow the point where such things become our only option slip by unnoticed. A carrot. Whoda thought.

“We therefore consider whether it is yet conceivable to restore that long-forgotten thing called Self-Government: that is, the power of the citizen in some degree to direct his own life and construct his own environment; to eat what he likes, to wear what he chooses, and to have (what the Trust must of necessity deny him) a range of choice.”

From Above.

This blog post. All of it. I have been hunting and hunting for that song since I fist heard it a week and a half ago. I think I love the whole album already. How could you not? I think it will hurt to listen to, but will be worth it. More of a Nick Hornby rather than a Ben Folds fan but the marriage is stunning. Don't know why I find it so and there's no one around to tell me. Gee this space is random - but then so am I.

The Evolution of God

I found this article a really great summary of thoughts. I've always found it odd that the most vocal athiests appear to attempt to prove that the God of religion does not exist, when I feel it would be far easier to offer a robust explanation of how religion came to be from a social science standpoint. Turns out there are a few of those out there too, whom I relate to far better than Richard Dawkins and co. I find the venomous nature of both sides of the argument distasteful, I particularly find the attacks on religion by athiests to be particularly puzzling and unhelpful and wish they could be self aware enough to understand the origins of their strong emotional reactions and need for evangelism. It would be far better if there were a representation of those who understood religious systems as an effective method of social governance which individuals in our society may elect to opt out of if they recognise it for what it is. Perhaps this is the key to the negative emotional response of the athiest. As a society we have evolved to a point where we have the luxury of individualism. Religion assures us that submission to the group will ultimately result in benefit for the individual also. Uniformity and shared understanding provides social stability, yes, but I think as a greater society we have moved beyond that in Maslow's hierarchy of needs to desire personal fulfilment in creativity, expression and self determination.

Ultimately I have a suspicion that social diversity works quite similarly to biodiversity, in which the maximum amount of variance results in the most robust system. It is the competition between different forces in a changing environment which cause evolution to occur. I suspect this closed minded social conflict, however distasteful I find it, to be a part of this system.

A lot of my thinking has been done previously, but I've never really felt the need to have a 'stance' as such, particularly since the majority of the thinking occurred whilst attempting to participate in organised religion. . I still don't really, but I'm conscious that there may be a time where I have to explain my position. I don't know how that conversation would go exactly, or how strongly I would put forth the argument given that I honesty think it would be easier for others to remain within the confines of established religion if possible. What I don't want is for my point of view to be dismissed as the reactions of anger, or a person in pain, although I will wish to communicate those too I guess.

I could change my mind again, and I love that about me.

small deaths

Community
Connection
Certainty
Control
All have died. One by one.
Devalued. Violated.Deserted.
One by one.
The one who understood me best, for whom I risked everything. Final words I understand all too clearly, uttered by another.
The one who was the shepherd, laying me before the wolves and telling them not to feed.
The ones who I thought would be there, who I thought would be amongst the few.
The eternal one who was never there.
Cold words - from cowardice and for the comfort of others.
Sacrificed - to strangers, to the silence.

Then the tiny life I didn't even know was there, slipping away. Leaving me. Leaving my body so violently. The final loss.

Will it really be the last?

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.