What is life about?
What is the purpose of life? I mean life for a human being? Not Life, but life…
What is life about? I mean life for a human being? Not Life, but life…
There are two schools of preference. Two schools of priorities. The main difference between the two schools is how they consider your size, and how they define what is your “job” in life, what should be your aspiration.
One school, the one that we live in now, the predominant school of thought, says that you are small, inconsequential, there is something vast and powerful that you must obey and fear. That you are powerless and you need to resort to magic and fantasy and help from supernatural beings to be able to make anything happen.
Your main job in life is to take care of yourself and yours. And if you have any energy or brain power left, then take care of other people…
If we designed rocket ships with the same preferences, the rocket ship would never leave the ground.
Our rocket ship, that separates us from anything and anyone in the Universe, is our ability to use our brain for functions beyond taking care of ourselves and ours. Just like animals, plants, insects, birds… not much difference.
Human beings are the cutting edge of existence, and the highest and best there is.
Not as an actuality, but as a potentiality.
Meaning that YOU are not the best thing ever happened to Existence. I mean that you were BORN to be the best thing ever happened to Existence, but you got sidetracked.
I have known most of my life that this school of thought, this school of preference keeps the lid on humanity’s evolution. Self-concern and the concern for yours keeps you separate from other people and from the Universe, and create an internal state of ‘them versus us…’ a worldview of scarcity, a worldview of having to fight to have anything, to be well, to live well.
A worldview that the enemy (anyone who is not you or anyone who disagrees with you) needs to be hated, forced, dominated, fought, annihilated, killed… because it’s the enemy, there is only so much to go around, and the world is hostile, and against you.
Our language reflects very faithfully this school of thought. For example the way we say “get rid of bacteria”, and such… incomplete, inaccurate, one size fits all, vague, generalizations, and a general view of language as “everything is the same as everything else, except not always.”
In the Pebble webinar when I ask people what is their frequent experience at the lowest point of their machine’s move, they throw at me, at most inaccurate, imprecise, nondescript phrases that don’t match what they feel, much like as if you called everything that has four legs a dog…
In fact we have a more precise language for dogs than we have for ourselves, our feelings, our aspirations, our desires. We use vague and non-committal language… This way everything can make us anxious and we stay close to home, never need to change, continue our violent and machine-like ways.
I once said that what defines you most is how far are you willing to swim from your place of shipwreck island… Most are not willing to swim far…
How do I know it? How can I know this? Why am I certain?
I have been immersed in a worldwide work of transformation for 30 years. Wherever people have been observed, this is the ground they walk on: this is the unchanging, this is the commonality, this is the common bind: this worldview, this preference.
Whether this worldview originates from the limited perspective of the human mind, or it’s fostered and promoted by religion, the powers that be, family, it is immaterial and not relevant. The only relevancy is that living in a culture of mediocrity, being tethered to others, is robbing you of what makes you human, of the victory that your life could be, robing you of satisfaction and a life well lived.
This school of thought, this school or preferences keeps humanity closer to animal than to human, and it forces humanity to use their power source for mere survival instead of for growing, accomplishment, brilliance, and godliness.
Let’s return to the analogy of the space rocket, as I started above:
I was born to break through the stratosphere as a human… (just like you!)
but, of course, gravity, society, didn’t want to allow me to soar, or to break away from the gravity of the planet (society, the accepted norms, the living for another’s sake).
Why would they bother?
If they let even one of us escape, then others will think that they can escape too… and then what will happen to the well organized, well carpeted jail, and what will happen to the jail-keepers?
Not good! They would not agree to that. So I was hindered, held back, blocked, and then seduced, time and time again, to join the flock, to be tethered to the ground, to not even dream about flying.
As you know, I am working on my Pebble course. At present, my whole being is centered around the distinctions of the “machine”, its secret moves, those unconscious moves that urge it into doing its rounds, keeping any human being unchanged at best, and deteriorating as the norm.
Looking through that particular “lens” or “filter” I saw something about my life, and thus came this article…
The other night I watched an episode of the TV show “Bones”. In that episode the main character, Dr. Temperance Brennan sees that maybe she will die with regrets that she never had a committed relationship with another character in the series.
I share a lot of similarities with Dr. Brennan. Most of the movies and TV shows I am guided to watch, so I knew there was guidance in that episode. But as with all guidance, you are only guided to see something, the choice is always yours. You are not told which way to go… You choose, and then you need to live with your choice.
One choice would be to regret not having put any emphasis on being loved, blah blah blah, and start pursuing that now… while it’s not too late.
I went there, to play that scenario in the theater of my mind… I don’t like to make decisions without investing some work first. I like to take each decision to its inevitable conclusion… I bet you never do that… lol. Next day my front tooth broke, a crown, a result of shabby workmanship of my dentist. Then my servers stopped functioning. Then I accidentally flooded my living room. Then… you get the picture, right?
All of these seemingly individual incidents would require my undivided attention, would strike fear in my heart, and force me to succumb to the idea that life is about loving and being loved, being taken care of, being secure, safe, and mediocre at best.
The other possible choice I can see is to consider this a con… a Dark Side suggestion. Society is the Dark Side.
If I asked you to tell me your life-story, you can tell it in many different ways. Most people tell it incident to incident, from tragedy to tragedy, betrayal to betrayal, or maybe from success to success.
Many others tell it through the places they lived, the schools they went to. Others through the love relationships they suffered through.
You could tell your life through your failed aspirations.
These are all lenses through which you can look at anything, including your life, or the history of your country. Most countries’ history is told through the kings, presidents, oppressive systems, wars, etc.
When I look at my life through the lens: ‘Dark Side suggestions that I should have a relationship’, I find that all those suggestions came when I was at the verge of breaking through the stratosphere, so to say, and accomplish something I could be proud of.
Having a relationship was never a real need of mine, it was always suggested to me, and I was, alas, too conflicted to say no.
I am not against people having offspring, I only know the price you have to pay to do it in an environment where suddenly Life gets reduced to that one tiny piece of life, and that becomes your life.
I have a student who bombarded me with emails all day yesterday about her lover who, according to her, needs her help to get well. She has neither the knowledge nor the objectivity one needs to help someone to get well: she is coming from the notions of having to be needed, helping, needing to be useful, there is something wrong with not being well, it needs to be fixed… all of the concerns of the small life created by the School of Priorities number one.
I just read an email from another student who saw that his purpose for relationships is to feel better about himself. This is what his life is about…
There is no solution to your problems or the planet’s problems inside this School of Priorities.
Primarily because there is nothing wrong with you or the planet, and there is no need to fix anything. What’s not wrong cannot be fixed.
Secondarily: because given your vantage point, your cone of vision, you’ll create solutions that are the next, bigger problem, both for you and for the planet.
I am seeing something. Your meaning is to be a monkey wrench in life…
very interesting…
Without intending to be rude, I bump people now on the sidewalk. People don’t know where their bodies are. I do. I will make a good faith effort to be a good sidewalk citizen, swerving a bit. But I am now also claiming my space. I am walking here, if you don’t get out of my way, bump you! If I could only get out of my own way. My sense of self has shriveled like the last worm to leave the sidewalk after the sun has come back out. I’m happy yo leave this world to the rude befoulers and benighted buffoons. My purpose is?