I Believe “in” Fairies
[thoughts from the other side ~burning woman~ by Sha’Tara]
The title of this piece is a bold, in your face, statement against this modern materialistic culture, a culture that stinks to high heaven and includes religionists and secularists in its swelling ranks. While ranting, let me add this: I hate this culture. It is not only dead from the inside out, it is inert, cold, tasteless and brain mushed. Should it continue to spread its nefarious influence throughout all of man’s societies, it will most certainly spell the death of man. Not the death of the species – the creature is useful to some and they won’t let it die, but of “man” as something superior, something that long ago began to evolve itself spiritually by developing a moral code of conduct. Modern materialism not only mocks moral conduct but destroys it. It encourages and holds immoral conduct and power-related corruption as an ideal to be attained by all. It destroys philosophy, common sense and imagination. It is the number one enemy of compassion. It’s the Terminator.
I have a saying that I hold to: believe all things, believe “in” nothing. The title of this essay seems to indicate that I can make exceptions to my rule. Yes, I can, when the need arises. To believe “in” fairies is not the same as entering into a top-down authoritarian power system. It is to enter into the child-like realm of imagination where personal choice is de rigueur. It is deliberately slipping down the rabbit hole chasing after a talking White Rabbit. It is thumbing your nose at the properly-decked-out power suited Mr. Materialist Terminator; laughing at him behind his back because from the lip of the rabbit hole, Mr. T. is transparent, and where a heart should be, there’s a flashing number that keeps fluctuating up and down. Despite his apparent boldness and certainty, he’s a construct; made up of conflicting and self-canceling beliefs. A whole world of blind and deaf people panting after new technological gadgets, instant make-overs and salvation inhabits Mr. T making his survival quite possibly impossible – as seen from the edge of the rabbit hole, of course. Up on the land, in the “real” world, he stands imposing, perfect, full of wisdom, indestructible; certain and unassailable. He is God.
There’s a strange kind of energy that flows from within the rabbit hole. It makes everything look and sound differently. If you look at the “real” world from the edge you can see the ripples in its fabric. You can see that it’s really all smoke and mirrors. It must claim to be “real” because of course it isn’t: it’s a lie. The proof? It has to use force to maintain its claim. Every form of controlled “order” is an unnatural use of force. It is power imposing itself upon the less powerful. God, or a god, is a power that imposes itself upon nature. Contrary to concocted doctrines regarding God, it is a type of completely arbitrary top-down pressure designed to make individuals conform to a group “ideal” as promoted by the God (or dictator, the terms are fully interchangeable). A divinity is never, ever, a supporting or benign force but can make itself appear so through misdirection and propaganda. In fact, to use "force" and "benign" together is an oxymoron.
A God must of necessity have an Achilles’ heel and that is its claim to absoluteness. Absolute values are of no use in creativity because life, to mean anything, has to be based on some kind of uncertainty principle. An absolute deity cannot create in uncertainty without blowing itself to kingdom come: it would be denying its very nature. If we exist within this uncertainty principle called life, then it means an absolute deity is an impossibility; if it claims to be absolute it has to be lying. That’s what the message from the rabbit hole translates as.
Safe houses where you can escape being lured down the rabbit hole are everywhere. Churches, of course, rank very high in protecting the individual from ever falling into imagination. These are followed by capitols (and lesser imitations) and banks. Serving these in various ways is organized sports, business, “science” and the military-industrial complex. Prepping individuals to enter these great halls of false teaching, oppressing, extorting, lying and legitimized if not actually rendering noble the mass-murder of innocents is ubiquitous public education, which can also be quite privately public-funded.
It’s only when standing at the edge of the rabbit hole, just before making the plunge away from the “real” world that anyone can actually see what modern materialistic society is: a fabric of cheap rhetoric; torn rags that a simple breath of clean wind can blow away in a moment. No thanks, I want no part of that. Now, do I slip down the rabbit hole? Well, you see, that’s the beauty of living in one’s own mind: I can choose any “escape” I want. I think I’ll forego the White Rabbit this time around and follow the fairies. A bit of fairy dust... and off to Neverland!
"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies." (Peter Pan – James M. Barrie)
*References to the Rabbit Hole from “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll (Charles Ludwidge Dodgson)
... and lyrics from the 60’s popular song, “Master Jack”
It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack
You taught me all I know and I'll never look back
It's a very strange world and I thank you, Master Jack
You took a colored ribbon from out of the sky
And taught me how to use it as the years went by
To tie up all your problems and make them look neat
And then to sell them to the people in the street
I saw right through the way you started teachin' me now
So some day soon you could get to use me somehow
I thank you very much and think you've been very kind
But I'd better move along before you change my mind
You taught me all the things the way you'd like them to be
But I'd like to see if other people agree
It's all very int'resting the way you disguise
But I'd like to see the world through my own eyes
Four Jacks and a Jill (South Africa band, circa 1965-68)
"Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean
And they wile away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they're covered up with flowers
In the back of a black limousine
[Chorus:]
La-da da da da da da da
La-da da da da da de
Talking 'bout you and me
And the games people play
Oh we make one another cry
Break a heart then we say goodbye
Cross our hearts and we hope to die
That the other was to blame
Neither one will give in
So we gaze at our eight by ten
Thinking 'bout the things that might have been
It's a dirty rotten shame
[Chorus]
People walking up to you
Singing glory hallelulia
And they're tryin to sock it to you
In the name of the Lord
They're gonna teach you how to meditate
Read your horoscope, cheat your faith
And further more to hell with hate
Come on and get on board
[Chorus]
Look around tell me what you see
What's happening to you and me
God grant me the serenity
To remember who I am
Cause you've given up your sanity
For your pride and your vanity
Turns you sad on humanity
And you don't give a da da da da da".
I like your article as it discusses a subject that has long been a source of frustration to me. May peace and love be always with you.
Jon Michael
Yeah, human nature is the cult of the individual. It contains components of both soundness and rot. Soundness in that our actions result in societal cohesion, rot in that our actions are detrimental to social cohesion. We all do what we do to satisfy our individual desires. While altruism is a word we use to describe actions we want to impute to "our better angels," don't believe it. Everything we do, we do for ourselves. Our actions may benefit others, and often do, but we do them only because it pleases us as individuals to see people or societies we like enjoying and bettering themselves -- and as a result, bettering our own situation. Contrarily, if some individual is one among too many or too distant for us to care about, we ignore their happiness and concentrate on our own circle of beneficiaries, with us within. This is the way human nature works -- always a push and tug between individual actions within the bounds of what is or what will continue to be acceptable to our aggregate society. When those bounds are exceeded, the aggregate will swing in a different direction. Social cohesion exists, to the extent that it does, because humans make it work through constant massaging of bounds surrounding actions of individuals within it.
When resources (liberties, land, food, water, etc.) become constrained, eventually human nature demands change. The rot comes out, the soundness receeds. Resources become constrained due to an imbalance in the numbers -- there are either too few individuals to provide adequate resources for social cohesion, or too many people to sustain adequate resources for individuals within society.
We are witnessing, through modern technology, peoples the world over demanding change. Why? The simple answer, and the correct one, is that there are too many people to be sustained by the resources of the earth, or of their section of it. Human nature has always been the same, with whatever components of soundness or rot contained within individuals. It has always driven groups of individuals to seek adequate or surplus resources.
What is different now is over-population plus modern communications and modern weaponry to attempt resource acquisition through conquest. Individuals are continuing to act within the bounds of human nature. There is just not enough resources for social cohesion to work. The rot in society has always been there as a part of human nature that has always been there. It's just that the rotten side of human nature is amplified due to this mismatch of resources and population and is on display for all to see all day, every day, through modern communications, i.e., TV and Internet, etc..
There has always been rot in human nature, but now it is revealed, mostly at the expense of aggregate social cohesion.
You are right about materialism being the primary cult of society, regardless of what leaders we follow. Isn't it interesting that Roman Catholics tend to be some of the poorest people in the world, while the Vatican holds untold riches. All in the name of following Jesus Christ (he wasn't supposed to have owned anything).
Ancient Rome provides a good analogy for today. It had an amazing infrastructure providing basic services. A strong military to conquer other lands. A constant supply of immigrant slave labor. And a ruling class of very rich, very stupid, people who brought the whole empire down with their avarice and jealousies.
My escape is writing about it.
Ron
Without Dreams You Will Have
Nothing Nada Period...
TRASK.....
Love ya!
Jane