The Cost of Individualism

Anarchists, Communists and other "foreign radicals"

in sinister control of the Bonus March - Money promised to veterans of WWI

I was raised in this place, America, where my forefathers came from Italy to seek a new life, to taste the fruits of freedom made from their own hands, sweat and blood. I learned, since elementary school of the great sacrifice of others, a nation that was born from revolution and ideas of common men, who overthrew a government of entitlement of privilege for a government based on the rule of law.

I remain grateful to have been born an American and more importantly, an individual, with a voice that cannot be suppressed. Not everyone needs to like me or believe what I say, but I assume, without relaying great offense, that what I have to say will be tolerated. I usually reserve what I have to say to my circle of friends and colleagues. I believe in the right to express myself to a larger audience as the need arises. I know I will always be able to think on my own and express myself as an individual on something as solitary or as universal as this blog. There is no need for a response but the link is available for commentary as others see fit. No censure will be imposed by me here…

Anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism have become the new weights used to balance the pans upon the scales of justice over the course of my adulthood. Some believe Conservatism imposes its values on democracy as the only true path. For others, we are moving toward socialism and communism. Reality is somewhere more at the center of the extremes but centrism is not newsworthy and much less entertaining. There seems to be only one way, one argument that is acceptable. Both the Right- and the Left-leaning media show contempt for, and often belittle, the opposing view. Chatter has become the current word for news and is delivered in sound bytes, Tweets, and Facebook posts. The media has provided us the means to interact with the professional news media and we may be able to see our Twitter contribution flash across the screen. Dystopian Newspeak as described in some detail in George Orwell’s 1984. It is amazing what people will accept as fact and reliable journalistic content. The time is upon us where individuals can share their voice as important commentary, no matter how mundane.

We have been bombarded with news reports recently about all of the new disclosures of “extraordinary interrogations” produced by the usurpers, elected by our free society, using the office of almighty power to become administrators of torture. They abandoned the principles many, my own fathers included, have sacrificed to preserve and have degraded their esteemed office and have tainted our country in the eyes of its many admirers. Since when has our message to the world been so blatant; meet in secret, twist the law to your will and force it down the throats of all societies. I hear the whispers in the streets, “Why does the rest of the world hate us so?" we say to one another in amazement. Did we really believe there would be no consequences as we continue to rail against the Muslim fundamentalists that attacked us after we have invaded and tainted their own soil with their own blood?

The parallels throughout history have been well documented. We soundly condemn ethnic cleansing whenever and wherever it occurs. We deem the crimes perpetrated against humanity during the Inquisition and the Holocaust as the most abhorrent times of our history. Pursuit of racial purity and doctrinal religious imposition at the literal expense and existence of the others has been allowed and often welcomed by societies. There is a complacent understanding that those acting on our behalf do so to save us from the danger and taint of the others and will allow us to preserve both our culture and our very lives. We make an exception to our values for the promise of the greater good. We know the consequences of what is being perpetrated but we remain isolated in our electronic cocoons thinking to ourselves, “I am not responsible”.

Individualism may be understandable and even excusable, but it should not be eternally acceptable. All-white juries have unjustly convicted black defendants in this country. Have we not come to truly embrace the spirit of the Civil Rights Amendment to be part of our collective soul such that a trial cannot be fair unless at least some jurors are the same race as the defendant? This is born of the same idea that those others, who art thou not me, will never understand each other. Maybe the times are truly changing and there is new hope for this melting pot and the proverbial stew from which I received nourishment in my youth. “Si, se puede!” I hear you my brother! Maybe, as Obama has said, “We must be the change we believe in”.

Why should I write of this? Whose deaf ears will my message pass to? I have always believed that, in America, I can criticize my government to my heart's content knowing that there will be no midnight knock at my door. Paranoia remains and I have a sneaking suspicion that at the moment I press the post button on my blog, this message will have already been received, decoded, filtered and registered in the database of criminals of the state. In the meantime, the real criminals of society provide the legal justification that torture is meant to protect us and has provided actionable intelligence. Dick Cheney is on every news show lately justifying what was done and that the ends justified the means. I am reminded of the story in Genesis where Satan temps Eve to eat the apple. Maybe eating the apple is good for us as we were taught that “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”.

After all, these are the actions of others against the others. What is the extent I am willing to take responsibility for my own actions? What of holding accountable others as is available to us all via the newly open electronic media? To write takes time and time is a precious commodity. I do not know if I want to sacrifice my time and may let others do the talking for me.

But wait; was there just a knock on my door? On my, I hope it is that package I ordered from Amazon.com that I paid for with my over-extended credit card.

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NOW here this - Impressions of an Eckhart Tolle Lecture

"Marvelous old architecture for LA", I thought to myself as we waited almost an hour to enter Royce concert hall on the campus of UCLA. The lines were separated into one for men and one for women. Everyone was frisked by security on the way in using pat downs and wands, checking for weapons with metal detectors over the door, and all the women’s handbags were opened and inspected, more extreme than usually performed at the airport. I assume Eckhart is a man of peace and we can make the assumption that there were unlikely to be terrorists attending his lecture. I attended this venue for music performances in 2007 and nothing like this happened. The absurdity of it made me think I was actually attending one of those performance artist’s interpretation of George Orwell’s “1984” and this was the audience participation piece related to the imposition of the powers of the state over the masses. To bad the reality of it was not conjured in some playwright’s mind.

When we finally managed to get into our seats there was a lone chair that sat patiently waiting on the stage. Since we were all almost ½ hour late getting into the theatre, a spokeswoman appeared to announce that Eckhart was waiting for everyone to be seated and he would be joining us presently. She was the founder of the “Sounds True” media company and produced some of Tolle’s lectures on CD-ROM and DVD. She said that we should refrain from applause when Eckhart enters as it would interfere with his consciousness or chi or some such ethereal state and I thought to myself, “Oh brother!, This is going to be a long night…”

A few minutes later, Eckhart Tolle took the stage and he reminded me at first of some German wood nymph like someone playing an elfish character for a staging of Wagner’s Ring Trilogy. This unassuming character took the stage and portrayed a very peaceful presence, bowing in the traditional Buddhist manner, before taking a seat and sitting motionless for a few minutes. When he finally spoke, he started with a joke, about the traffic on the freeway, the long lines to get into the theatre and that it was good to bring the angst of the experience in this place with us now for it would soon be “put away”. We were told to concentrate on this present moment and to try to put those past images out of our minds. Clever, this wood nymph attempting to resolve our anxiety, the vexing issues of our collective experience, by simply asking us to step into the present.

I was reminded of the experiences I have had from attending lectures here by Thick Naht Hahn and disciples of the Dalai Lama where a similar collective consciousness was shared and a quieting sense of peace came over the audience. “Attend, my son, and hear what is said…”, I thought to myself.

I have benefited in my life by reading or attending lectures by spiritual teachers. The deep inner study performed by others and presented during a lecture have allowed me listen to their experience, to enrich my life and see things in a different light. Naturally, then, learning to enjoy the present moment would be something that I really have a desire to do. I find I must make a conscious attempt to live in the moment though I still feel trapped by grasping at what is to come. It takes a concerted effort to let the past slip away. Most would greatly benefit letting the past slip by and to use the past as a point of reference for knowledge purposes.

I found him to have an engaging sense of humor that brought in the audience and he blended his message of living in the present with witty anecdotes. He strongly emphasized that the mind is the root of all problems because it has taken us over meaning that we can't control it, but rather, it controls us. However, we can free ourselves from this by becoming totally present. On the negative side, this message was repeated over and over. Ok we understand, even the new age noodle heads with the fake blond hair in the audience (men and women both with the same dyed blond hair, by the way, I don’t want to be taken as a misogynist) got it.

Eckhart stressed embracing the present as the truest state of “timelessness”, that state where bliss is found as taught by others; I greatly appreciated his concept of object versus space consciousness. The interplay of mind-ego as the cornerstone of personal enslavement to ideas was another good part of his lecture. These were excellent ideas and are worthy of much contemplation. I have never really thought of this object consciousness before and how we waste so much of our energy filling this channel of our lives, brilliant observation.

There is some incongruity here with his concept of the present that conflicts significantly with most observers of this phenomenon. Eckhart sees the past and future as time, and the present as timeless. This is counter-intuitive as the past, present, and future is all of time. The present, the now in that sense, is not outside of time. By mentally drawing your attention to the present, you are merely focusing on a different aspect of time. This may aid in a sense of spiritual freedom, but only shifts one's attention temporarily from all things that make up time. It should be noted that the concept of the now in most philosophical and spiritual teachings is that state of timelessness that is generally considered beyond the past, present, and future. Maybe that what he means by the present, the now…

The only negative impression I came away with was that just focusing on living in the present, releasing yourself to embrace this moment, is just a defensive mechanism to avoid depression and to turn on happy apathy when the going gets tough. Maybe this is the psychologist in me speaking, clouded by my storehouse of knowledge, which chains me to my past.

Overall, the lecture was enlightening and informative. I still do not believe that he has all the answers to bring us, through his Power of Now concept, to the one path of spiritual enlightenment. It is a good concept to keep in the arsenal for our struggles in this life. I think spiritual enlightenment would more likely come to you when accept the taking of full responsibility for what we have experienced. Do and go about choosing to follow a future path. You have to realize to expect and be totally willing to make adjustments for what you plan to do in the future. Wisdom comes from what was learned. What you choose to do with that wisdom is up to you and implies taking action toward some future outcome. Living life with blinders on so that each coming moment is to be lived anew is a fool’s folly and those who adopt that philosophy are surely people who could not function well in the world we choose, and are often forced, to live in. Adopting that lifestyle is the ultimate retreat into selfishness and egotism.

On a personal level, I enjoy accepting the experience of living in the moment. The sensuality of it is liberating. I am not ready to give up all of what is past and that which may be yet to come. I am very thankful for the past coming to me in this moment as the richness of all my senses can be awoken with the memory of past experiences. My past and current experience has an influence on which of many possible outcomes I may encounter and my reaction to being in that moment when it comes. Isn’t that the same for all of us? We are at our best when we achieve balance of mind, body and spirit in whatever time we are experiencing.

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