Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Being part, belonging is part of the Original Design. It is part of the DNA to belong. To belong to something greater than yourself.
Family, group, society…
And it is a good thing… and yet.
When I look at how it seems to look in reality, I see the opposite.
According to Roy Williams in 2023: ‘Working Together for the Common Good,’ 2023 is the Zenith, the highest point of the ‘WE,’ cycle… from that point the ‘sun’ or the WE gets lower.
The 3,000-year pendulum of Western Civilization* is energized by two good things that oppose each other:
Every 40-year ‘ME’ cycle is driven by the hunger for individuality and freedom of expression.
Every 40-year ‘WE’ cycle is driven by working together for the common good.
We begin each of these cycles with the best of intentions; but then we take that good thing too far – all the way to the zenith at one end of the pendulum’s arc – and then we begin to mourn what we left behind.
20 years up to the zenith, 20 years back down; then we begin our 20-year journey up to the opposite zenith; then 20 years back down to complete the 80-year roundtrip.
Now, judging from how ugly it is today… judging from how not ‘we’ it looks today, I am going to make a bold statement… and then I’ll muscletest it to see if it is close to truth”
Until you have a Self, you’ll behave UGLY in any period of the pendulum. (true)
So how do you know if you have a Self?
When I ask who you are, you actually KNOW, because you have identified what value, what virtue, what ‘greater than yourself’ you are giving yourself over.
The very first book I have ever read…
….was Iron bull by German (Austrian?) author who use the pseudonym Alex Wedding. No English translation… because it is a story in Mao’s Communist China. It’s about a Chinese orphan who overcomes his low standing in society. He immerses himself into a life of crime, but through inner strength and hard work and makes himself a person he can be proud of.
Ultimately, I think, with that book I gave myself to that idea, that no matter how low, how underprivileged, oppressed, underdog you are, you can make yourself go to the top with work and developing virtues.
I was a true underdog
I was sickly, I was dyslexic, I was not loved, I felt excluded, I felt stupid… a true underdog. And I was Jewish in an antisemitic world, where Jews can be hung by their feet, publicly exposing their genitals a proof.
So I identified with a segment of the population who would do whatever it takes to overcome their low status.
That is who I am. An absolute and never faltering WE.
Having a Self is as rare in humanity
And this, having a Self is as rare in humanity as anything… let me ask Source how many people have a Self…
Source says, only me.
Everyone else is ‘about themselves’… no WE.
So Roy Williams’ WE period is not about BEING WE… is about being superior, self-righteous about something… like religion, like nationalism, like color, ethnicity, smarts, or anything that can make YOU superior… not about what you have given your life to that is greater than yourself.
Great is not a synonym of big…
Great is higher. In the case of humanity: higher than the limited perspective of the human mind.
But what about Communists. Or revolutionaries? Weren’t they, aren’t they giving their lives to something greater than themselves?
The issue is that it doesn’t become their Self. It becomes a job, a campaign, that once the job is done, is gone. They may give their time, their efforts, but not themselves.
I really like Victor Frankl… but even him, the closest to what I am talking about, even he gave his time for his own sake… So he can maintain his ‘purpose’, his ‘why’…
Not bad, but not it.
Close but no cigar… (Annie Oakley)
She, Annie has a Self…
But, I guess, having a Self is becoming rarer and rarer.
How about priests, and nuns? Sorry, it is all about them… not about what they seemingly gave themselves to.
We are in the midst of the fifth challenge… The Completion Challenge.
The goal is to become whole and complete through it.
The completion process takes you through several steps, each feels counter-intuitive… meaning: the mind doesn’t like them.
People in the challenge have the biggest problem seeing the difference between morality and virtue.
Morality dictates right/wrong, black and white by society’s self-interest.
Virtues are neither right not wrong. They just make life more workable, more enjoyable, and they ultimately resonate with the spirit within.
Finding the spirit within is the difficulty… because it is either about you, your self-concern, your greediness, your selfishness, your self-serving ego, or it is about the spirit. Can’t be both.
And when something has go to give (another movie reference? lol) what gives is the spirit… and what remains is the self-serving about-me. So far.
Did you notice that I am not inviting you to participant in the Completion Challenge?
I am not.
Why? Because unless you first go through and identify what is running your life and develop some hunger for freedom to be, and for being whole and complete, you won’t know what you are doing…
Do the current participant already know?
Not yet… lol. Will they? Let’s hope.
The higher is your desire number, and the higher is your about-me score, the further you are from having a Self… from giving yourself over to something greater than yourself… including a vocation…
Like music, like entertaining, like anything that is not about you.
PS:
I am reading yet another long book by David Estes. In this people are denied the right to reproduce, claiming that there are not enough resources, while the truth is there is room for another 100 million people in the United States alone.
Why am I saying this… so you know that I have been crying for days now… I have a real hard time being with evil.
PPS: To get out of your own cone of vision, you need to step to the side… and see from not through your own self-interest… Driftwood… getting it?
