Whose in charge here?

“If you don’t like something, change it.

If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

- Maya Angelou

“If you do not change direction, you

may end up where you are going.”

- Lao Tzu

There is a lot going on in this world, both at home and abroad.  It seems that our sensibilities become so overwhelmed, as our minds move from event to event, that it is hard to keep things in order. Okay, maybe not ‘us,’ but certainly me.

A few bullet points garnered from the week:

- Horrific killing of an American journalist.

- Death and destruction in the Middle East.

- Unnecessary loss of life in the Ukraine.

- War, murder and wanton disregard for humanity in an area of the world where science, the arts and mathematics was once the greatest in human history (Syria/Iraq).

- Serious unrest in American cities as many question justice and fair play.

- Failure of our government to make, what appear to be, the smallest decisions.

- Wanton concentration of wealth and weakening of the middle classes.

That’s just a touch of the ongoing planetary struggle.

How does one sort any of this out? 

The cognitive dissonance for me comes from the realization that life has probably always been this way; just without the 24-hour news cycle that has commoditized information distribution, so agenda driven that it defies rational thought.  

Odysseus plugged the ears of his ship’s crew with wax and had them tie him to the mast of his ship, so that when Sirens promised knowledge and wisdom, he could hear, but not fall victim to their seductive lies.  They said:

“Once he hears to his heart's content, sails on, a wiser man.

We know all the pains that the Greeks and Trojans once endured
on the spreading plain of Troy when the gods willed it so—

all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!”

-       Homer: The Odyssey

In the epic poem, sailors that listened never escaped and were destroyed. 

The book of Genesis tells the same morality tale.  Don’t eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil…”…for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”  The serpent, the ‘Siren’ of the Old Testament said, “…Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and yea shall be as gods…”

In this story, eating of the ‘fruit’ led to man’s separation from God and a life of unrest and turmoil until as a race…the human race, was able to understand there might be a better way…that we might transcend the cycle of destruction and misery from which there seemed no escape.

Maybe as these stories reflect, it is better not to hear and therefore not respond…maybe if we did NOT listen to things over which we have no control…maybe if we understood ‘we’ are the ones who determine our own reactions, the quality of our lives would be better.

It’s hard to comprehend…

One would think with the capacity and ingenuity of the human mind we would understand the futility of repeating destructive behavior again and again and again.  

We pride ourselves on being able to adapt, and there is little doubt we have adapted and found ways to survive in some of the most hostile environments…and yet, here we are killing one another with words, and guns and swords and knives so that we can show…show what?  That we are right?  That we are better?  That we are smarter?  The momentary high of exerting power gives way to an emptiness and void, leading once again to the insidious need for the next ‘fix.’

This sounds like a litany of woe and despair.  In fact it is anything but…at least for me. 

I cannot change things that are toxic and a pox on mankind…BUT I can choose…choose to not put things in my mind that ricochet around and around leading to resentment and distrust.  I can choose to interact in positive ways with as many people as possible.

Odysseus might have been right…

Maybe we might need to lash ourselves to the mast of positive words, and behavior, and habit and character that keep us from acting on the siren sounds that surround us with such unrelenting constancy that we think of it as normal.  Maybe it is a matter of hanging on with all our might to the things that we know make us feel consistently better, and consciously act on them

None of us can change the things that demean life and brutalize sensibilities, but we can determine the way we choose to interact with the things that present themselves to us, in whatever form.

All the self help books, the spiritual gurus, the ancient spiritual writings tell us to focus on ourselves and our lives will be better.  They always seem to make so much sense when we read them, but for some reason, we so often do not put the ideas into practice.  I suppose when one looks away from the mirror, they forget what they look like, and when these teachings are set aside and we face the day, they seem to be forgotten.

Change, of course can only come by consistent choice, in spite of the torrent of noxious material that comes our way on a daily basis.  We are the only ones who can make a difference in our lives. 

Better life?  Better choices!  This does sound a bit naïve, over simplified and Pollyannaish.   When you are young, I suppose they are.  When you are older, on the other hand, and say them from the lifetime experience of ‘what works’ and ‘what does not,’ they are anything but clichés wrapped in Kumbaya moments with soft sounding phrases that ask, “…why can’t we just get along?”

They are simply pragmatic…

- ted