What is it to compassionate (sounds like fate)? One definition includes the fashionable pejorative of conflating care with feeling superior when attempting to alleviate the suffering of another. How have we ever gotten to a place in our quest for self awareness to qualify “good” compassion and “bad” compassion? Pema Chodron has observed this disparity and counsels, “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.” Because of my own darkness i experience conflict with this distinction, for no other reason than if one is to gain the capacity for care, it must begin wherever that person is in the arc; if all you can muster is pity because you are unable to perceive the vast insignificance of the entire human race, why should that prevent you from making an effort to comfort another? It seems we have been 2nd guessing ourselves for so long we’ve grown gun-shy about what i believe is a reflexive human instinct. When I read that quote, i imagine the wounded as being more evolved mostly because my sense is there is no healing until one takes it upon themselves to be well. I love Ms Chodron and feel compassion for her courage to pursue the relationship of pain to peace. Sitting here daring to write about something so lacking planet-wide that we are assaulted wth photos and videos depicting untold suffering without any apparent means to control, much less understand the causes of such pain. We’ve allowed ourselves to become numb and given our natural inclination to help into the often doctrinaire purview of “professionals.” I believe Ms Chodron is also saying - to be really good at compassion, one must see deeply into one’s own self, but that holds true for every aspect of our lives. Truth be told, without Ms Chodron’s kind encouragement, i’d never have attempted something so fraught with peril as advocating for care; if you are hearing darkness, it is mine - not the honest efforts of so many puzzling with the same dilemma.
How does one develop a capacity for concern about others when daily we must turn away from the ravages of a dying race or be consumed by its magnitude? I don’t know, for many years i pursued a state of selflessness because the greed and egotism demanded by the ruling class was such an affront to logic and decency that i fought with the only thing at my disposal - my existence. While there is much to be gained by disappearing into the fabric of humanity as to be no more than a thread in the vast tapestry of our kind, i found if my thread was weak, it contributed more to the rending of the whole by forces natural and deliberate. My good fortune is to have been born of creative people and i discovered my life was best served by following their superior example. The helplessness i felt for conditions of others was countered by that necessary empathy used to conceive. I found relief in trying to understand other’s difficulties and to then share my perception - be that from the expression in a face, turn of a wrist or articulation of the real torment that evil manifests. This process has not been straightforward by any means, and informed all too often by my own wellspring of rage. It seemed though, that until i was able to find kindness for myself any effort to contribute to another’s peace was diluted or missed entirely. What makes the equation so complex is the very effective insinuation by our merchant class equating objects with feelings, and to then correlate those feelings into self-worth. You were born worthy - there is no middle ground. “The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong in the world” - Paul Farmer; however difficult Mr. Trump makes that argument very to defend. A famous person on fb once commented quietly that the billionaires may be the ones that need the compassion. At that time, as with all good lessons, i could barely wrap my head around the concept, except for the nagging discomfort of its truth. Yet the deeper you go into the pathology of power it becomes more and more clear that those wielding, what is by all accounts, the world’s power are deeply troubled souls. By my reckoning, those same ciphers demonstrate a remarkable level of weakness as opposed to power. The delusion that any one person can change another is of the most suspect concepts we have ever allowed to take root in what C.G. Jung calls “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious.”
You who read this will only take away those beliefs you’ve arrived at through your own efforts and reflection; everything in this essay that is recognizable to you will be from your own learning rather than any assertion i make. How can it be otherwise? My resistance to the idea that our rulers are all powerful, is from my own internal struggle with worth, not from the reality that anyone so oblivious to their own frailty that they would attempt to define their lives almost entirely from trappings and regalia. I learned about this chimera of appearance in the cauldron of the largest courthouse west of the Mississippi which was served by many - from high to low. Within that melange, assumption had no place, be that judge, clerk or the accused. Outwardly there is no question of roles, but the greater reality of who was powerful and why could not be taken at face value - not when your livelihood depended on clarity about who was doing who with whose help. Ironically the weakest of the lot needed the most help - without a social construct to support their rulings judges seemed the most fragile, while those couriers transporting the mountain of legalese on bicycles held great leverage and exercised it assiduously to their personal gain. Sadly awareness of their inherent nobility was wholly lost through the seduction of stupidity which the ruling class uses on susceptible demographics like that blunt force object of a weak man to coerce the much stronger woman. It was the realization that not one thing i could ever say would convince the couriers of their worth that eventually became resignation to the reality that i am incapable of altering anyone. However, to say that i was unaffected by the experience would be untrue; i am profoundly changed by all i saw, but from the pain that knowing only through their own efforts could they be lifted. Previous to these events, my own worth was tightly linked to my identity as a Social Justice Warrior (SJW), an acronym i’ve only just learned exists. There is no war except for the truth that can only be found within the heart of each human being.
Does this knowledge absolve me from my belief that service to others is the only viable occupation left to our species, no. If anything it forces me deeper into my own limitations - either those of my own design, or ones overlaid by the well-intentioned to whom we all owe so much. Whether self-knowledge results in a greater awareness for the suffering of others, or deeper compassion for how to aid another’s healing doesn’t matter much; more likely there is not one without the other. However, at the root of self-awareness is to know we are our own worst enemy. “The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.” - Pema Chodron. Without gentleness, this growth cannot be accomplished. Honesty will come like the cactus flower that knows not it grows amidst thorns, or a piano that has fallen 3 floors, it will land regardless of your desires. Gentleness is more elusive. One can be uncommonly tender an object, yet hideously cruel to one’s self. I’ve had shirts, i’d take better care of than my teeth? Why is that? There is a threat that comes from seeing into one’s behavior, for to know the reason one is unkind to oneself is to accept unkindness from others. Conversely, to see clearly one’s faults and to possess them means you are free from the judgement of others. It must be the same for shame, guilt or love. I don’t really know anymore, but i find the minute i feel repulsed from anyone - the disquiet is my own. Life is too short to live outside of one’s own peace, or more importantly to not seek ways for others to enjoy their own peace. True generosity is finding ways to give what you seek for yourself.
We are entering into a period of crisis for our species, the false premise which declares personal gain the engine of our economy has resulted in the poisoning of our water - a compound which occupies 70% or more of our anatomy. Our food supply has been adulterated for no greater gain than to deprive millions of employment, and to increase the wealth of those too rich to spend what they have in the course of their lifetimes - that is insane. I don’t make these statements to alarm you - you already know the truth in your hearts. You can see it in the glow of your child’s face while they scroll on their toy computers - the vacant stare that was not there as their eyes began to focus and the world’s wonder was reflected in their expressions. We must, as Leonard Cohen has sung, conduct a “bitter searching of the heart.” Without a willingness to know, or return to the instinctive kindness one can still see in every playground on the planet, our motivations will shortly be uploaded from corporate servers into chips implanted within our brains containing news no different than the false promise that labor saving devices would free us all from drudgery, but in fact separated us from the very rhythms of our hearts. What is hard is not our enemy, what is easy must be considered for who? When a man was caught breaking into another’s home, the “Code of Hammurabi dictated that the offender would be buried within the wall of that home. Those who would steal from you your very worth, must be made similarly accountable. It is not the black man who has caused the breakdown of our social fabric, but anyone seeking life’s fulfillment at the expense of all others. When you buy a shirt for $20 that a mother of 12 was paid 60 pennies to produce - you are not being honest with yourself; it is not a fair exchange, anymore than when you spend a 1/2 a month in wages to buy an electronic shackle fashioned as a convenience, and another half month’s wages to access “your” internet. The corporate shill sponsoring this “knowledge revolution” only cares about your keystrokes, and will do anything to make you press that button - anything that is except be honest.
“Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.” - Lao Tzu
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indifference / the sonnet
Who would drag indifference from a child?
To what end blunt outrage of injustice?
Is our doom better managed when we’re mild,
or more easily led without compass?
It’s hard to care when you don’t see it done,
like feelings from a disembodied screen-
near impossible with an army of one,
whose supply lines have gotten awful lean.
Who’s singing “if you can’t beat, ‘em join ‘em”-
them or us? Why are they called “them” - who’s “us”?
Does it matter anymore whose emblem
is on it; there’a cliff; we are in the bus.
row, row, row your boat doesn’t really fit
sounds a lot to me like, who gives a shit?
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