Pause long enough if you indeed can, and you will see what's really going on. It's not exactly behind the scenes - it is in front of your eyes, but you can't see it. Your eyes are defective. They need the scales to fall, the penny to drop.
Around 80 percent of readers are going to abandon this post right here. I'm not surprised and I don't care! I'm not trying to act like I know better than you. I am worse than you in many ways. Far worse. Those who really know me would have pressed the buzzer long ago.
All of that aside, don't you ever wonder what has happened to any patience our human race ever had? I can almost hear the screaming, "get to the point already! I don't have time!" We're hardly a couple of paragraphs into this post.
So why do we need to know RIGHT NOW? This instant? Can't we wait for it?
Why do we have to know EVERYTHING? Can't we leave any room for mystery?
Why do we have to turn the spotlights on every detail? Can't we leave some things alone?
Why do we have to name things all the time? Isn't that merely a form of denial - a way of "homogenising" everything? Why can't some things be left unsaid, undone, unnamed. unknown, awaited?
Why are all the wheels in the world squeaky suddenly?
Why does every loop, every thread, need to be closed and circuited? What's wrong with leaving some things open ended? Why do there need to be results all the time? So what if some things actually do not produce results? Do all such things become invalid because of that?
Do we have to solve for every variable in this world? Every time?
Why does every single thing have to be binary - either succeeding or failing, with nothing in between? Can't some things succeed at times and fail at others without making the news and everyone's red-eye target?
Thank heavens that even though we insist on knowing everything all the time and controlling everything all the time, there are a zillion things that we cannot know and cannot control no matter how successful we get at doing so. Such things remind us that we are limited and ensure that we don't become bored. They also keep some mysteries intact and away from our prying eyes and nosy-parker minds.
It's ironical that even though we insist on knowing everything and looking under every carpet, we accept the answers that present themselves without questioning. We want answers but we won't wait long enough to work out whether an answer actually works or not, whether it is really credible or not. We are so impatient that we assume answers, many times. We act on these assumptions too. We are both feverishly nosy as well as childishly gullible, all at the same time, with everything.
Therefore, everything that's really important remains under wraps and shrouded in both mystery and controversy, because we accept pat answers and leave no room for subtlety, nuance, shades or depth. We don't have the ken for complexity, really, no matter how vehemently we multi-task. As you can imagine, this is both a good thing as well as a bad thing, because life is more complex than it is simple. So, with our present (as in, this age) approach to our quests for knowledge, we're not going to be able to learn very much about it that we can really work with. Not that this ever deterred us.....
What are the important things in life anyways?
We somehow cannot agree on this. Some of us say it is the here and now. Many of us say it's happiness. Some of us say it's the future. Very, very few actually will admit that it is where we came from and how we got here, that really has the power to endow our lives with purpose and meaning and shed a beam of light down our present paths and where they are leading us.
We very rarely pause long enough to appreciate that though we do know that only the big picture, with origins, the present and the future, will make complete sense of our lives, we usually opt to live locally in the now and ignore questions of origin ("no one will ever be able to find out, so why try") and destiny ("we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it") Along with the pivotal questions of origin and destiny, purpose, which is the jewel of life if we cared enough to admit it, also becomes somewhat of a diamond in the rough and in the dust.
The question we're usually most concerned with, even though many of us are ignorant of this and many of us are in denial, is this thing called identity. "Who am I?" still remains the most pivotal unanswered question. Many of us go through life without ever having asked it; and almost all of us substitute anything for it but the truth about it.
There's a big technology revolution going on these days. Almost every human being is becoming increasingly traceable, monitor-able and track-able, but the real distances between us are opening up in yawning chasms without even broken rope bridges between. We are getting up to within jostling space of each other, but the possibility of us remaining strangers forever has never ever been more than a heartbeat away. Nearness and communication have become increasingly inversely related. The nearer technology brings us, the worse we seem to be able to communicate.
Whistle blowers come and go. Actually, trumpets are blaring in our ears. Real insights are waiting for the eyes that care enough for a second opinion about the diamonds in the dust. But most of us just pass on by. Our faces are grim; our outlook like a pronounced judgment, and there seems to be some force within us that will keep us going, even if it is in the wrong direction.
The image I get of life on this planet is that of a nuclear treatment plant in which alarms are blaring because the radiation walls have fallen and the toxin is everywhere. The sound of the alarms is deafening, and the sights of radiation damage, unimaginable. Yet, most of us go through this nuclear treatment plant impeccably dressed, blissfully unaware and/or immune, ostensibly not harming ourselves or others (never mind the radiation damage), perfectly mannered, smiling as we drift towards eternity, even as we mutate imperceptibly, inexorably and irreversibly into eternally feral beings without knowing it, as if life was nothing more than a comedy of manners. Can we not hear? Can we not see? Apparently not.
We are on a systematic hunt for all mirrors - to destroy them so that we will never have to look at ourselves again. The picture of Dorian Gray has already been altered willingly and there is no remorse at it, or even anger. Every single dial at the nuclear plant is spinning out of control, but we think it's just a manufacturing defect. Even though our attempts at fixing this defect have failed miserably again and again.
Now that I've painted us all into some dark, sinister corner, you may ask, what are we supposed to do? Don't you have answers instead of these infernal questions? Can you not offer hope rather than doomsday prophecy?
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Answers cannot save us. Every single answer we figured out has only led to more questions.
Solutions are always temporary. The wrong people always take them and run, leaving the rest of us holding the bag. It's always been that way.
The thing we've always failed to understand about life is that there has always been a need to RESTART it. Technology should help us with the analogy that goes with this word "restart". However, when a virus hits a microchip, restarting is of no use. You need to replace the motherboard. Change the chips. Virtually, re-make or re-model the computer.
Now since we've lost the instruction thingy and/or have failed to do it perfectly, the magnitude of this "re-make" is unthinkable, and those among us who know this have already given up trying to do it on our own. We need help. Presumably, we will get help if we first give up trying on our own and then actually ask for it. Ask where? Ask who? Ask what?
Ask the maker of life, obviously. There's got to be SOMEONE like that who knows what's going on, surely?
So, go figure. Never was there a time when more depended on us having to "go figure".
If you believe in meta data, so much the better. There's ALWAYS meta data. Yet, meta data also stops with someone who knows themselves completely; and obviously this someone isn't human, or we'd have been able to fix ourselves perfectly by now.
Don't look at me now - I've only done what I was supposed to do - sit by the wayside and blow whistles. Go find that one who's not human.
