A friend wanted to know what I thought about the killing of Osama bin Laden .
I've had a theory for a long time that the next step in human evolution would not be physical but spiritual - homo spiritus. It's not a new idea.
Evolution is not revolution. In evolution the new live among the old. The new don't kill off the old, they simply live longer and have more successful progeny; successful in the biological sense.
I think this is why so many of us seek guidance and sustenance of a higher power. We want to evolve. Some of that seeking leads to evolutionary dead-ends. Forms of creation that become too twisted to survive.
I'm not advocating killing such creatures off. The thing about evolution is that we don't have to kill them off.
I don't know whether Osama was a failed step on the evolutionary road. I just hope he was.
I was also thinking about what kind of a little boy Osama was. How was he raised? Did his mother and father love and nurture him or was he raised by surrogates? Did he have friends? Did he get to play silly games?
I don't think hatred is natural. I think it is learned. We see those around us frightened. We see fear become anger. We see sustained, unresolved anger become hate.
And our fear becomes anger.
And our anger becomes hate.
And we kill what we hate.
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
09 May 2011
21 March 2011
Fear & Love
"Fear and love are contradictory terms. Love is reckless in giving away, oblivious as to what it gets in return. Love wrestles with the world as with itself and ultimately gains a mastery over all other feelings." - 'From S.S. Rajputana-III' (Letter from M.D.)*, Young India, 1 Oct. 1931 (from The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi edited by Raghavan Iyer)
Fear, I understand. I am a very fearful person and have always been so from my earliest memories. My father used to tell me that there was nothing to be afraid of. This did not help. It only made me feel bad about myself for being weak.
Today, I still have many fears. I fear financial insecurity, even though I have more than enough money. I fear old age and poor health. I fear losing my wife. I fear losing my daughters, biological and foster. I fear strangers. The list goes on and on.
But I have also begun to learn love. I started to learn in my late teens when I decided that for me the most important thing in the universe were children. Much of my adult life has been spent sharing my life with children. This brings me great joy and great sorrow, but mostly great love. I don't know that I have helped any of them, but I know that they have helped me.
It was this love that brought me to non-violence. It takes but a glance at history to see that the greatest victims of violence and greed have always been children. Followed closely, I might add, by the victimization of women.
A world of non-violence, a world of love, would be a world where the least among us would be raised up as the most important and most valued.
* Mahadev Desai published the above extract from a discours given by Gandhi at the evening prayer, during his voyage to London.
Fear, I understand. I am a very fearful person and have always been so from my earliest memories. My father used to tell me that there was nothing to be afraid of. This did not help. It only made me feel bad about myself for being weak.
Today, I still have many fears. I fear financial insecurity, even though I have more than enough money. I fear old age and poor health. I fear losing my wife. I fear losing my daughters, biological and foster. I fear strangers. The list goes on and on.
But I have also begun to learn love. I started to learn in my late teens when I decided that for me the most important thing in the universe were children. Much of my adult life has been spent sharing my life with children. This brings me great joy and great sorrow, but mostly great love. I don't know that I have helped any of them, but I know that they have helped me.
It was this love that brought me to non-violence. It takes but a glance at history to see that the greatest victims of violence and greed have always been children. Followed closely, I might add, by the victimization of women.
A world of non-violence, a world of love, would be a world where the least among us would be raised up as the most important and most valued.
* Mahadev Desai published the above extract from a discours given by Gandhi at the evening prayer, during his voyage to London.
03 March 2011
A Quack like Me
"The optimist lives delighting in thoughts of love and charity...The pessimist, being himself prey to violent attachments and dislikes, looks upon every person as his enemy..." - 'Optimism' (G.), Navajivan, 23 Oct 1921
My wife has told me often over the years that when ever we talk about the future, I always see the bad things that can happen and never the good, and I believe she is telling me the truth.. It is a hard thing for me to hear.
I want to believe that I am an optimist, but that is not the truth. I live in fear. I seem to have been that way as long as I can remember.
When I was a boy and would tell my father that I was afraid, he would look at me sternly and tell me there was nothing to be afraid of.
My father had a difficult upbringing. His mother was married either seven or nine times, he wasn't sure which. At the age of sixteen, he beat up his then current step-father and went to live in the oil fields of California with his real father, working for him on his wild-cat oil rigs. At seventeen, he joined the Navy and was in port in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. His first ship was sunk there. Two more ships he was on during the war were sunk in the Pacific. I don't think he could ever let himself feel scared and he didn't want his son to be fearful. But I was, and I felt like I was a failure. I was never the son my father wanted. He wanted a man's man. I was far more comfortable with women.
In recent years, I have begun to accept that I am a fearful person. I don't like it, but I have stopped trying to change this fact about myself. It is not in my power to change. However, what is in my power to change is how I react to my fears.
I pray for courage.
My wife has told me often over the years that when ever we talk about the future, I always see the bad things that can happen and never the good, and I believe she is telling me the truth.. It is a hard thing for me to hear.
I want to believe that I am an optimist, but that is not the truth. I live in fear. I seem to have been that way as long as I can remember.
When I was a boy and would tell my father that I was afraid, he would look at me sternly and tell me there was nothing to be afraid of.
My father had a difficult upbringing. His mother was married either seven or nine times, he wasn't sure which. At the age of sixteen, he beat up his then current step-father and went to live in the oil fields of California with his real father, working for him on his wild-cat oil rigs. At seventeen, he joined the Navy and was in port in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. His first ship was sunk there. Two more ships he was on during the war were sunk in the Pacific. I don't think he could ever let himself feel scared and he didn't want his son to be fearful. But I was, and I felt like I was a failure. I was never the son my father wanted. He wanted a man's man. I was far more comfortable with women.
In recent years, I have begun to accept that I am a fearful person. I don't like it, but I have stopped trying to change this fact about myself. It is not in my power to change. However, what is in my power to change is how I react to my fears.
I pray for courage.
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