One of my students wrote to me:
Self-care. I perform the poorest and I’m not consistent. Not sure what one category it fits under, in a way I can see it being a part of all big four areas of life.
To me it’s like I need to steal it in order to get it, it doesn’t come naturally or where I don’t feel guilty. Even reading by myself I feel guilty of being selfish. It’s etched in me and so when I do want to take care of myself it feels like I have to fight for the right, when I really don’t.
Now, it should be obvious for anyone who has read the Feelings book that what she is talking about is the basic needs of a human. That the phenomenon she talks about is not personal, that most women, especially in different male-centered cultures will mistakenly behave like this: violently deny their own needs. Rights vs. needs.
It is not very different from self-mutilation. It is just done with different tools.
It is a violence against life, against nature. Denying Life, being on the side of Death.
On the Tree of Knowledge all kinds of violence is ok… including self-violence. You suppress, you deny… but eventually it comes out.
Oh the Tree of Life you own your own anger, you own your own violent anger, and owning it allows it to disperse, to disappear.
The Tree of Knowledge, the dominion of manipulating your emotions and behavior, is an artificial, against nature construct. Your life isn’t to life your life, your life is to do what someone who you don’t even know says to do.
I watched the movie “Back to Eden” again yesterday. I hate it when religious Christians talk about the good god who made life so livable for them… but this guy, this gardener, did something most humans, or maybe all humans never did: he observed nature and learned it secrets.
The rules of the Garden of Eden are nature’s rules. They have worked forever and created life on this planet.
Then came man and decided to ignore the existing laws, existing rules, and laid down his own rules… destructive, violent, against nature.
Result: man is ready to colonize Mars and other planets, grow tomatoes in his urine, and continue his violence.
You are that man. You never actually stop to look. To observe. No: you open your mouth and speak. You repeat some absolute bullshit, that has been repeated in the past thousands of years, by millions of ignorant and “superior” humans, and it never occurred to you to look before you lay down the law… Every speaking is committing. Every speaking is laying down some law.
And it’s violence.
When I send a student to a book I recommend, and he answers: “I started reading Chapter 10 by Roy Williams. There’s a lot of wisdom there.”
How the f… does he know what wisdom is? From wherein comes the pride?
The more you are locked onto the Tree of Knowledge the more violent is your personal nature… And I never even have to see you in action to know it: it spills out of your mouth.
Pride is violence. Judgment is violence. Knowing is violence.
You have no idea.
If all those PhD’s that write all those books can get the truth value of their book up to only 7%… If the diligent work of Tai, tens of thousands of hours, ten thousand books lead to his knowledge being 10% truth value… how dare you to pontificate?
The only violent act you should employ is zip it. Shut the f… up. Listen. Learn. Observe. Ponder.
But not, THAT you don’t want to do. It is, you say, your birthright to run your mouth, make up laws that are against nature, say “carbon dioxide doesn’t contribute to global warming” and bullshit like that.
I am outraged.
You think this outburst is violent? You should experience my dreams!
You think you are a good person because you never do what you want to do? Because you obey some unwritten rule that excuses you from having to be a person, being responsible for yourself, and being accountable for humanity in your person?
A few years ago I read the book where an orangutan takes the author through the possibility of an earth without man’s violence against the earth…
The book was very thought provoking. At the time I was very attracted, but was very doubtful that the path it suggested was even walkable.
But after watching the Back to Eden movie, the fifth time, I think, I think it can be done.
Couple the ideas in the Anastasia books and in this movie, and create a grass roots movements.
I could feel the inner harmony that was created by following nature’s rules… in spite of all the scripture quotes… Those kinds of quotes have been used to justify genocide, so I am a little allergic to hearing them… but I see that a good man will use a tool to good.
Just like a knife: in the hand of a good man it’s a tool of good, in the hand of a violent man, on the Tree of Knowledge: it is a tool of violence.
There is also another kind of violence: although in the end you’ll find out: it is not different at all… it is also based in arrogance and “knowing”.
This kind of violence comes from a sense of powerlessness.
- I feel powerless in getting through to you… your “knowing” is impenetrable.
- I feel powerless in causing you to get off the Tree of Knowledge, and start living your life in harmony with nature, your nature.
- I feel that I can’t make a difference, because there is no echo.
Echo is the sound of the seed falling in fertile ground.
When I speak I hear either the sound of the seed falling on the pavement, or the seed falling in toxic ground… where it will grow into a toxic plant.
My favorite Hungarian Poet, Jozsef Attila, wrote when he was around 20: My translation.
I don’t have a father and I don’t have a mother.
I don’t have a god, I don’t have a country
I don’t have a cradle… nor a shroud
No one to kiss… no one to love.
I haven’t eaten in three days,
not a lot, not a little.
My 20 years is power.
I’ll sell my 20 years.
If no one wants to buy it, if no one wants it, I’ll sell it to the Devil.
And with pure heart I break in, if I have to, I’ll kill too.
They’ll catch me, they’ll hang me
They’ll cover my corpse with sacred earth
And toxic deathly grass will grow from my beautiful heart. 1
Do you hear the powerlessness? Do you recognize it? that is also Tree of Knowledge.
There is always power. There is always the question: who are you going to be? Cause or effect?
You choose to be effect… and you have handed the power over to others, to circumstances.
You choose to be cause… and cause where to look, what to honor, who to be.
People like that cannot be broken. Because they can be killed, but neither bent, nor ruled, nor broken.
Because they choose to grow where others shrink or die or perform violence on themselves, pretending that they are good.
I discovered about 12 years ago that I was often unkind. When I got in touch with what was there, I found fear. I found profound helplessness. I found fearing for my life.
Not what you expect would drive an unkind person… but that is what I found.
It’s taken me the past 12 years to be able to turn the attention away from the other, completely, and on myself, where I have all the power.
I have, very slowly, eliminated violence from my relating to people… and master self in those situations, 70% of the time. The remaining 30% I at least rant and rave… or call names.
Like a fish caught in a net… not like a human being I claim I have become.
Why do I like that poem so much? Because the violence, explored in poetry, disperses it. Because the idea of death bringing grass… toxic grass growing out of my heart is how it is, if the hate and anger lives in your heart.
That is, I say, violence. And that poem keeps me straight.
I want my beautiful heart to bring life to people.
Give back to life to what is Life’s due.
And I use whatever tool I can find to become that.
Nincsen apám, se anyám,
se istenem, se hazám,
se bölcsõm, se szemfedõm,
se csókom, se szeretõm.Harmadnapja nem eszek,
se sokat, se keveset.
Húsz esztendõm hatalom,
húsz esztendõm eladom.Hogyha nem kell senkinek,
hát az ördög veszi meg.
Tiszta szívvel betörök,
ha kell, embert is ölök.Elfognak és felkötnek,
áldott földdel elfödnek
s halált hozó fû terem
gyönyörûszép szívemen.
yuck it is. lol
Sophie, for the longest time I just stared at the naked sentence, “I started reading Chapter 10 by Roy Williams.” I could have left it at that.
My arrogance might be like any one of the many privileges I enjoy, transparent to me until pointed out. I always have to say something, I always have to give everything a little pat on the head. Yuck.