Order through Chaos
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest; A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. To free ourselves from this prison, to embrace all mankind indiscriminately and the whole of nature in its beauty is a task all too necessary yet all too difficult to achieve. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. However, the foundations of our separatist institutions had deliberately displaced even the thought of such achievement from independent consideration long ago; generations of social conditioning have distorted our understandings of humanity and lead us to devalue it, thus we devalue ourselves. Time is accepted as a linear process pressured with social deadlines and an irreversible biological clock that we’re labored to work around; we’re kept so busy that we’ve come to accept that there’s no other time to learn our ways as any other. Prejudice continuously emerges in all its manifestations as history repeats itself in more sophisticated manners because of that defeatist belief. There is something very profitable and empowering about the mindset of ignorance which only those who observe and manage society from outside the box can truly benefit from when they’ve learned how to invest in it; when the value of a human being is measured in financial worth. The inner conflict’s humanity suffers is nothing short of a tragedy but it’s nothing that we can blame ourselves for. Through the eyes of the powerful, there is no order without chaos.
There is discrimination in the world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember –even if only for a time—that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek –as we do—nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can. Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become, in our own hearts, brothers and countrymen again. Of course, initiation of this course objective riddled with idealism doesn’t come without question or ease.
The answer is to rely on youth –not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements of thought and action have flowed from the work of a single man or woman. They were unique in their individualism as they had found a way to operate their agendas while the powerful pulled their strings from behind the curtains. And as their sense of self had come into focus with the public array, they let it be known that their breakaway was the result of heightened awareness and not luck; a capability not limited to singled-out demographics.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. For it is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues; the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world and its societies which yield most painfully to change.
Society is a cruel dictating entity which carries a simple-mindedness reflecting the people within it. Among the essential unspoken “ten commandments” embedded in our subconscious are publicized rules and norms; a sort of life orientation. We all have our roles in society and we are expected to follow through with the tagged responsibilities. Early on in life we are taught to love our neighbor yet destroy the competition; a lesson symbolizing the roots of our conflicting “pick a side or shut up” ways of thinking. Success, failure, manhood, womanhood, maturity, immaturity, beauty, ugliness, strength, weakness, rich, poor, smart, unintelligent, young, old, good, bad; these are the major critiques which under judgment measure a man or woman, determining their level of acceptance in a community. Constantly pressured by demand, we are also stressed with social deadlines and biological clocks, leaving our lives narrowed down to a linear timeline that barely gives us time to think or make thoughtful judgment, so our institutions think for us.
The ironic nature of these institutions can’t be recognized by first impression and particularly so, the average person wasn’t meant to understand it beyond what’s masked on the surface. Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroys information, and religion destroys spirituality; not to say that those passionate about these fields of study share the intention. I acknowledge the sensitivity that comes with such a claim that may be perceived as radical, but this is what I’ve come to understand. I don’t know the meaning of life, but I do know that it wasn’t meant to be dictated by the investments of special interest groups.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power I our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of.. we are dominated by a relatively small number of persons.. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind and who harness social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. With that said, it’s considerably easier to understand why most people decide to follow the “in-crowd” and why so many when looking at the consequences of transgression and how complex peer-pressure is distributed so sophisticatedly by those above and beyond the “need-to-know” basis.
The norms of our society were not designed for equal opportunity, and nor do many of us start from scratch. It’s easy to find a person who has had their head start in life, but not so easy is it to find one whom would not impose their inheritance or whom understands the struggles of those on the lower end of whatever social hierarchies. For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education and wealth. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of man than any other time in history. The infrastructure of social conditioning that had persuaded our society for so long is at its most vulnerable thanks to advancing technology and the suggested opportunity should not be taken for granted. All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that event. Modern society yearns for change, but time and time again we habitually place our faith and that burden on the wrong people; time and time again blinded by the illusion of change, unaware of history on its course to repeat itself once more. The old ignorant mindset milked of its profit and power to the last drop, a new one is born and the cycle continues with those who had not yet broken free. The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
The strength in our ability to make change comes with the sense of awareness, and the measure which our society is in need of is by no means easy to reach but by no means is it impossible. The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of a free-will society. Our future may seemingly lie beyond this vision, but it is not completely out of our control. It is the shaping impulse of the human spirit that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle that will determine our futures. Mankind can be as big as it wants; no problem of human destiny is beyond the divinity of human beings; Power through knowledge, composure through wisdom, understanding through awareness, focus through spirit, compassion through soul, and aspiration through heart.
Man is the rational animal, so to speak. He alone can say “I”- and can contemplate his own existence and behavior and actively seek to affect the world around him or her. This is called independence; the opposite of which is collectivism. But this unique capacity is threatening to the Establishment who do not wish man to become aware of the various forms of manipulation which contravene his independent thought and action. The most strongly enforced of all taboos is the taboo against knowing who and what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate and isolated ego. Many will be convinced that we will never find the answers to burning questions regarding the meaning of life, nature of the soul, or the arguable existence of a divine higher intelligence- otherwise nicknamed “God”. Many will also enclose themselves within their safety bubbles in spite of fear, denying themselves the profoundness of experiences which simply cannot be offered by an orthodox lifestyle. Society tries to convince us that life as simple as a drawn out plan; that you are to graduate college by this age, that you are to marry and start a family by that age, that you are still young and just starting life because you are however old, that you must make this much money to be considered successful, that you are not beautiful because you are not perfect, so on and so forth.. But if you were to follow the paths constructed and influenced by society’s shallowness, so would you be submitting your will. And because they have self-prophesized their failure, they will never make the attempt to journey outside of the social pattern they were scripted to improvise.
There are testing moments in life that make or break a person which are irrelevant to our biological clocks or sociological deadlines; they are moments usually lived through unexpectedly, unpredictably, and uniquely. They are what I believe trigger our mental growth and build our individuality from the ground up. Whatever trials and tribulations we all may go through in life, the most difficult test which it seems to all dwindle down to is the challenge of overcoming death, for harmony doesn’t come without balance. When life is treated and valued in the deepest sense, not just as a captivation of experience, but as an exploration of truth, a test of awareness, a challenge of logic, an innovation of human potential, the maturity of intuition and most importantly an opportunity of knowledge humbled by wisdom, then consciousness can eventually be understood as an entity grander than the reality we perceive before us. Energy, unlike matter, cannot be destroyed. Awakening to such a realization makes it absolutely capable for us to overlook, if not overcome, our fears of death. If triumphant over the irrational subconscious within, it’s then that we are truly opened to the opportunity to know what it is to be alive in all its potential; to be purely free and independent, to be human.
~ Author Unknown
