I’m weary of language. Weary of words, words, words. As if they mean anything. As if they could really capture experience. Poetry comes the closest to expressing verbally the things that can never completely be expressed - it doesn’t seek to put meaning in a cage; it respects mystery and paradox, the deep irrational nature of Truth, the tenuous combination of agony and ecstacy caught between the Self and the bathroom mirror.
But still, only words. And so few people speak poetically anymore. If they do, it’s in a glass box, on display. Or on a printed page. In a book. Selling for $12.99.
When was the last time you heard the morning news plumb the depths of human experience?
This is one of the major blunders of our culture. We seek to control so much - to know things for sure. To know facts. To prove things true or untrue. People seek this kind of truth in many places: in books, in scientific laboratories. Even in churches people seem to have lost the sense of the unknown. They speak about God and the Trinity and Faith and Salvation. They make checklists of doctrines. They debate endlessly over what constitutes “saving” knowledge and what does not. Process, define, delineate. Words, words, words.
Go find a spot of grass and look up into the sky. Past the streetlights. Past the office buildings. Past the skyscrapers. Feel the grass against your arms. It tingles. Almost hurts. And the sky is strangely blue. Is it beautiful? Is it terrifying? Maybe neither, maybe both. You simply allow yourself to fall into it. That is the truth.
I suppose a controlling way of thinking lends people a measure of sanity - a measure of coherence. But people confuse coherence and stability with a simple greed for views. For knowledge. For certainty.
Remember: the Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
I can walk through school and hear the word “nigga” from one end of the hall to another. With me being half black, it doesn’t bother me.
I’ll be honest, it’s funny when you hear a comedian on TV say, “Its cause I’m a nigga.” It’s thrown around just about everywhere I go. In society, between different races and in music.
Over the past couple of years I’ve heard the argument over that particular word pass by me persistently.
One side will say, “It’s just a word. It means friend, homie, my dude.”
The other side replies, “But it has meaning to it. A painful past that we would not like to recall.”
I remain in the middle saying, “Words have power and meaning, but they can change or evolve over time.”
I realize this dispute will never end and in the future there will be more.
This issue brought up another question in my head. I once asked a friend of mine, “So what will happen when homosexuals begin using the word ‘faggot’ in a friendly way? Will everyone else begins to use this word in the same fashion?”
She only said, “Well, you know what people can/will do with it. I bet you they’re already using it that way too.”
I don’t like this word nor do I like using it. But if my gay friend refers to himself as a “faggot” I can’t say anything against it because it’s his choice to use it. But if someone else calls him a faggot, what will he do? How will he react?
When a white person calls a black person nigger, you’ve just about got the same situation going on.
So I will say again, words have power, always will. But it truly depends on how you use them and how others react.
Ok so is it just me or does everything in this world seem to be taking a turn for the worse.
The quality of things seem to be going down, people seem to be getting less considerate, the media seems to be showing a little more leniance in what goes on the air. Shows are getting more racy and the news is holding more crime, our politicians are getting themselves into trouble, and there is just so much fighting.
It could just be me, but what is going on?
Is the world getting worse by the second?
What is happening? And how long will it keep happening for? Are we just supposed to sit here and take it? Let our entire universe fade to nothingness? I think that it is time to make change.
Unlike John Mayer’s song “Waiting on the World to Change” stop waiitng, get up and do something.
I know that I do not like what I see.
I want my world to be a good place for me and future generations.
But at this rate, where are we relly headed? No where good, I think.
There are multiple ways to fulfill our needs in society. One way: We work, we trade. We provide service for service. We give someone a product, and expect to be paid back. This system is even. Mathematical. It works.
But there is another way: the concept of pay-it-forward. We act as a community. We do no bargaining, no trading. We expect no one to pay us back. We only expect that our gift will be passed on, payed forward, circulated in new ways, new forms, touching new lives - and eventually the gift comes full circle. An entire society is transformed. This is true community.
