Truth & Courage...

 

You know...

 

Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr - all just ordinary people, like me and you...

 

As were all the other "heroes/heroines" of social change...

 

With the same fears, needs, human personalities, struggles...

 

ALL they did, was speak what they felt/thought was the truth and ACTED on it...

 

Stuck to it, stayed true to it, refused to give it up, even though they knew there would be a price to pay for speaking up...

 

 

We all know what is 'the right thing to do" - our gut tells us so, and it and our conscience "niggle" at us when we turn our backs on that...

 

Most of us pretend we can't feel/hear that niggle - we rationalise, justify, excuse our way to ignoring it...

 

  

 

What would the world be like if WE STOP TURNING OUR BACKS ON WHAT WE KNOW TO BE TRUE?...

 

LYRICS:

Try and remember now just what has been done.
Enslavement, displacement of every nation.
And now to one nation, everyone hold their grudge.
Kind of makes me wonder about which side I'm on.
I don't defend white, and I don't defend black.
I defend truth and rights and all of that.
I work on situations where I'm at
Hold my position and never fall of track.

Chorus
Nah give up my faith!
Though Babylon rage,
I and I will strive until
the end of my days.
go against society, Rasta courage.

I never give no good vibes
and I never give up no truth.
Never trade my sanity for living in Babylon crew.
Vanity will never drive this man insane.
This man will walk alongside Jah again.
We see all of the pressure to conform today,
And I may sometimes bend,
but only as not to break.

Cause a life of iniquity for laziness' sake
Is a deal with the devil Rasta just can't make.

Chorus

Looking back now upon all of the evidence
400 years and what those years have
really done, we talk of peace but at the
first sign of war. Bredren and bredren and
sistren ain't sistren no more. Without forgiveness
how will any war cease, while the heathen rage
Rastaman sitting at ease. No one will move a
muscle for some moral justice and with no justice they won't live.

Critical Thinking 101...

...TO GET TO THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER:

 
the only question you ever have to ask, is who benefits from pushing a particular agenda, point of view, policy, action?

the only thing you ever have to observe is someone's actions - do they match their words?

and the final test is to see who people hang out/associate with...

in other words - follow the money, connect the dots....

when you figure that out, all the rest falls into place...

and there are always those who are not transparent about their real intentions/motivations/agendas and they get really pissy when they're caught out...

Day 4...

... Day 4 of court and we are getting to the not-so-pleasant nitty gritty...

Turns out, the boy's father didn't mean his wedding vows - he thought of our union as a Marriage of Convenience, as a formality he needed to go through to guarantee his parenting rights...

Hmmmmm...

Just Say No!...

My grown kids worry about my homeless/moneyless situation;

They want to know why I just can't/won't play THE GAME...

Because THE GAME is toxic and kills...

My soul demands that I refuse to collaborate and enable THE GAME, and to do what I can to interrupt, if not end, it;

I bear witness to, and call out, its sociopathic cruelty - NOT IN MY NAME - and I pay a material price for that...

And the price we all pay for playing THE GAME is much higher than the loss of physical comfort and "security"...

In this case, just saying "NO", abstaining, is really the only strategy we have that will work in ending the madness...

 

Post Script:

I've had a lot of response to this post, particularly from older women who are in the same situation, walking the same revolutionary path;

We've turned our backs on security to push for change;

Our souls want/need to help heal the world, for all the other beings on the planet, and for our children and grandchildren... 

“The world will be saved by the Western woman.”

~Dalai Lama

Vancouver Peace Summit, 2009

Did You Know...

... that the capacity to 'endure' is VASTLY over-rated?

Enduring this drama...

Someone said to me that other day, that my job right now is to simply 'endure'... and that she marvelled at my capacity to endure... that she didn't know how I was holding it all together...

AND everything that needs to be done is turning into an epic challenge, with seemingly endless roadblocks and obstacles and U-turns...

Holding the reality that a wish to go back to Australia with the boy, has a real chance of turning into me losing custody of him, as his father attempts to paint me an unfit mother...

And what judge - the henchman of the oligarchs - would think me otherwise, looking at our financial and living situation, at my views and choices on "educating" the boy, at my philosophical and political views, at my activism?

What to do to head that off without legal help, without completely turning myself inside out for the system...

What will I do to keep custody of the boy?

What principles will I cave on?

Will it be enough to simply withdraw my Intention to Relocate Notification?

Is that still possible - or have I let things go to far?

And I have to face this - tomorrow... 

Am not 'prepared' in the legal sense because I have no energy or desire to play this game - I just want to go in there, speak my truth and have that accepted...

I'm full, feeling desperate, overwhelmed, on the back foot, confused, bewildered, alone, panic-stricken... 

And yet, I am not the clouds...

I am the always-present sky through which the ever-changing clouds of my emotions form, reform and evaporate as they pass across the sky...

This too, shall pass...

I surrender...

What will be, will be...

(and no, that doesn't mean I give up - it means I give up my desire to control the process and the outcome, I let it unfold...)

 

Insanity Is...

I have to be in court on Friday morning to argue for another Protection Order, to argue against changes to Child Support orders and to answer a Contempt of Court charge, for not forcing the boy to see his father against his will...

I was supposed to prepare responses and counter claims for filing by today...

And I haven't...

For a week now, I have sat down every day to deal with this...

And I have nothing written, no "evidence" gathered...

I've been dumping on myself for falling into the old procrastination, "I want to be saved" pattern...

AND...

This morning I realised I just can't/won't bring myself to add to the crap that's already on the table in this 7-year long family law saga...

I don't want to spend time, energy and trees rehashing all the old toxic stuff, to win this battle... 

AND...

Is that just a self-serving rationalisation/justification to make my refusal to do what needs to be done OK, acceptable?

AND...

I've decided to turn up in court and speak my truth and what will be, will be...

AND...

I'm nauseated, scared shitless that not playing the game will be a huge tactical mistake and cost me (and the boy) dearly...

AND...

This is such a reflection of what goes on in the bigger world... might is right, winners and losers, power and control, conflict to "resolve" differences/settle disputes...

There must be another way...

In Hindu mythology, Mother Durga is the destroyer of evil.

A warrior goddess astride a lion or tiger,

with many weapons in her hands (symbolising Her many powers),

she plunges forth to kill and destroy the Evil,

to protect and cleanse the universe as the occasion arises.

  She is invoked to bring courage and the strength to overcome adversity.

Truth, Justice & The American Way...

Our truth is truer than your truth.... 

“We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.”

- Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), journalist, political commentator and author of the term “Cold War.” 

- via Ted Pease, journalism professor, Utah State University

 

 

So... in the micro and the macro, the personal and the political, we're fighting over whose truth is THE TRUTH... and for most of us, we're convinced that our truth is the one and only right/real/valid truth and let the others' be damned...

 

So ... where to from there?

Calling A Spade A Spade...

When I deconstruct things down to their bare bones (something for which I seem to have a gift!) some people get pissy and say I'm just being crass...

Well, not sure this woman could be accused of being crass - sardonic yes, crass no:

And if you do want to say she's crass, then I'm in very good company!

State of the Nation...

Chaos and confusion...

...and crooked paths...

...that are found only by crawling and feeling my/our way through the jungle undergrowth...

 "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism"

from George Orwell's 1984,

in the chapter entitled "War Is Peace",

edited by Miguel Sanchez:

 

In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years.   War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. . . .

This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous.   On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.

But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties.   The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. . .

To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. . . The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself.    Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.   It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly.    All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes.   It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.  In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink.  Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world. . .

War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages.   If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies.   The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. . .

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture.   It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another.   But though it is unreal it is not meaningless.   It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. . . 

In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all.   The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact..."

 

How To Recognise Propaganda...

If you're feeling a bit confused and don't know what to believe in the media these days, use this handy propaganda tactic identifier to sort fact from fiction...

 

Propaganda Techniques:

Appeals to fear and seeking to build support by instilling anxieties and panic in the general population.

 Bandwagon and "inevitable-victory" appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of action that "everyone else is taking".

  

The black and white fallacy presents only two choices, with the product or idea being propagated as the better choice.

The "plain folks" or "common man" approach attempts to convince the audience that the propagandist's positions reflect the common sense of the people.

Making individuals from the opposing nation, from a different ethnic group, or those who support the opposing viewpoint appear to be subhuman.

An attempt to influence public perception by disseminating negative and dubious/false information designed to undermine the credibility of their beliefs.

An attempt to justify an action on the grounds that doing so will make one more patriotic, or in some way benefit a country, group or idea the targeted audience supports.

Glittering generalities are emotionally appealing words that are applied to a product or idea, but present no concrete argument or analysis.    This technique has also been referred to as the PT Barnum effect.

Propagandists use the name-calling technique to start fears and arouse prejudices in their hearers in the intent that the bad names will cause hearers to construct a negative opinion about a group or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist wants hearers to denounce.

Generalities are deliberately vague so that the audience may supply its own interpretations.    The intention is to move the audience by use of undefined phrases, without analysing their validity or attempting to determine their reasonableness or application.

Favourable generalities are used to provide simple answers to complex social, political, economic, or military problems.

Assigning blame to an individual or group, thus alleviating feelings of guilt from responsible parties and/or distracting attention from the need to fix the problem for which blame is being assigned.

This technique attempts to arouse prejudices in an audience by labelling the object of the propaganda campaign as something the target audience fears, hates, loathes, or finds undesirable.

Putting forward a straw man argument, which is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.
 

Usage of words in the value system of the target audience that produce a positive image when attached to a person or issue.

 

Some Are Born Awake...

Sometimes I envy those born after me... so many seem to be born "awake and aware" and committed from birth to living their truth.

They recognise the BS (bullshit) wherever it exists and appear to be unafraid of calling it for what it is...

It SEEMS to me that for many of my generation (and previous ones), that awakening came later in life and consequently with a more difficult weaning/turning away from the dream/illusion...

The young give me joy, hope and inspiration... I am so proud of them...

LYRICS:

that I would be good even if I did nothing
that I would be good even if I got the thumbs down
that I would be good if I got and stayed sick
that I would be good even if I gained ten pounds

that I would be fine even if I went bankrupt
that I would be good if I lost my hair and my youth
that I would be great if I was no longer queen
that I would be grand if I was not all knowing

that I would be loved even when I numb myself
that I would be good even when I am overwhelmed
that I would be loved even when I was fuming
that I would be good even if I was clingy

that I would be good even if I lost sanity
that I would be good
whether with or without you


LYRICS:

I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more then you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn


LYRICS:

Do you derive joy when someone else succeeds?
Do you not play dirty when engaged in competition?
Do you have a big intellectual capacity but know
that it alone does not equate to wisdom?
Do you see everything as an illusion
but enjoy it even though you are not of it?
Are you both masculine and feminine, politically aware, and don't believe in capital punishment?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer

Do you derive joy from diving in and seeing that
loving someone can actually feel like freedom? Are you funny and self-deprecating, like adventure, and have many formed opinions?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover

I'm in no hurry; I could wait forever
I'm in no rush cause I like being solo
There are no worries and certainly no pressure In the meantime I'll live like there's no tomorrow

Are you uninhibited in bed, more than three times a week, up for being experimental?
Are you athletic?
Are you thriving in a job that helps your brother?
Are you not addicted?

These are 21 things that I want in a lover
Not necessarily needs but qualities that I prefer
I figure I can describe it since I have a choice in the matter
These are 21 things I choose to choose in a lover

 

 

Judging A Book By Its Cover...

We all do it...

We've made up our minds about a person, a situation, an event, a thing based solely on outward appearances...

And we miss so much of the richness life has to offer us by this short-sightedness...

For example...

I did a bit of self-promotion on Facebook today, putting up links to my two websites - 

www.metamind-creative.com and www.metamind-spirit.com ...

If you click on the links, you'll notice that I've used Comic Sans for the font on both...

I got an immediate response from a Facebook connection.   In addition to a private message, she posted the following in public:

SZ: If someone you know just put up a new website promoting their business services....and it's done in Comic Sans, what do you tell them? (My heart stopped when I saw it.)
 

EAS: I would suggest - gently - that perhaps that particular font isn't the most professional-looking. I love that font, it's my favorite for personal correspondence. But definitely a no-no if one wishes to have their business taken seriously.
 

ETB: LOL! Politely suggest to them that it's not really a professional font. What else can you do?
 

DD:  www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/comic-sans-strikes-again_n_653035.html

SZ:  Brilliant, DD! Loved that link.   I had to tell her the truth because I like her and I know no one will ever hire her based on her website. I glanced at it for ONE SECOND, gasped and clicked off as if I'd seen the most offensive thing in the world. That was my honest reaction. I did tell her Comic Sans' only appropriate use is for a birthday party invitation for a kid under 5.  EAS, why, oh why, do you "love that font?" Doesn't it scream "immature" to you?

EAS: Hehe... you say "immature", I say "free-spirited". Hence my only using it for personal stuff. ;)  The link was awesome, too. Yet another example of inappropriate font usage. ;)

MY RESPONSE:

Sahila ChangeBringer: I want to thank you SZ for your feedback, and you're not the first person who has had that reaction, and been good enough (really, I appreciate the honesty and courage) to let me know what they think.

            I use the font DELIBERATELY... One of the ideas I work with, with my mainstream and 'other' clients, is that our beliefs shape our reality... and those beliefs are often based on ideas that might once have had value but are for the most part obsolete... and judging someone as "professional" or "immature" by the font they use is one of these cases...

            I sometimes facilitate workshops (where none of the participants have met me before), turning up in the scruffiest, oldest clothes I can find...

            I don't try to establish my credibility... I don't really introduce myself, we don't do the round of 'feel good' warm-up stuff, we just get straight into the hard stuff...

            I do it to move people out of their comfort zone, to take them off balance and to get them to recognise their own limited perceptions and how they respond when things are presented in ways other than the 'norm' or 'the professional'....

            And at the end, I explain what I was doing and why I was doing it... and I ask them to notice their response... It's very eye-opening...

            How much do we each clutter and filter our perceptions about life and people based on how it/they 'appear' to us? Do I only have credibility if I present myself in a certain way?

            How do you judge a beggar on the street? Do you judge him as a 'loser' by his clothes, or can you see past that outward appearance and be open, listen to the wisdom of his experience/life journey?

I've seen the most 'professional' looking people do the most unkind things, and not be good at their jobs...

I've seen the poorest, most 'unattractive' people give and give of their love,  possessions, practicality, common sense and hard physical labour until you would think there was nothing left to give, and then they'd give some more...

I've read the most wonderful words in tattered, humbly bound and  plainly typeset books...

... and the most vapid claptrap in lavish, high quality production tomes...

You can't tell a book by its cover...