Do You Have What It Takes!!!! A Love Letter to Humanity

     Humanity vrs Death

This has been the age old question, to conquer the end.  We all face it, we all find our own answers, and we think we have it all figured out.  When your world is black and white, or written in binary this might satisfy.  Like everything else we are, this is just a holdover from previous developmental cycles.  These go back not to when we had words for me to write this down, but back to primordial ooze of single celled organisms.  The universe or God, or as it's coalescing into my essence as panversal is in and of itself conscious, it is structured energy, which is what everything is. Information processing.  As every would be sage, poet, musician, blade of grass, and grain of sand has been telling us forever.  This is a love story, this is a passion play, the stories do not even change, they get rebranded, updated, but for at least the last 6 thousand years we have all learned variations of these same stories.  Oh the names change, characters get makeovers, and  costume changes,  But from the Chinese dragon emperor's, to the Dogon's of the Sahara, the Aboriginals of Australia, down the lines it goes, not in one place but in them all.  We came from the stars, that concept has been twisted around to mean so many things to so many people, from the ubermensch of the aldebaran to Pharaonic gods of Egypt, Right on back to the what we are told is our earliest civilizations in Sumer, and I'm not here to today argue that point.  I do not care when, or where, or actually even who.  I'm a big picture person, I do really well at taking a dispassionate stance and getting as wide a view as possible calling it like I see it.  A valuable skill if you can find work for it, most of my friends just say I think to much, and they are sometimes right.  In taking that position expansive view point, the patterns just kinda pop out, like the rivers in this text if you let your eyes unfocus, and just like that, the information you get from the text is not the same, and that view is not even on whole thought of as particularly useful.  The people are interested in the words, not the rivers, so I learned to see the words like everyone else around me did, only they didn't seem to say the same thing to me as to everyone else.  As a matter of fact they said the same as the rivers, and they were almost all saying the same things.  Even when they seemed disjointed, or unrelated the same words were always there.

From the ecstatic altered state inducing dances of the Whirling  Dervishes, or Tantric sex practices, Yoga, and Breathing techniques, in joyous upliftment of the celebration of life.  On down into the depths of despair, and  tragedy, and depravity.  They all contain at there core I am alive, I am here, shouting into the darkness, longing for or hoping against that return response.  I'm here I see you! This is the most wonderfully terrifying moment for all of us, and in our polarized, 2 dimensional world view of dark versus light we have left room for only 2 options.  Some say it's love/hate, some fight/flight, it doesn't matter what the choices are labeled as, the important part is the limiting of choice.  It's the offer of false simplicity, and simple is easy, and comforting, even at it's worst it's at least predictable. I mean if I only have 2 choices, there is always a 50% chance I'm right.  This is very useful in long term evolution of life. Kill or be killed is valid for much of what we think of as life. The response of nature is always the same, no matter the method used to carry it out, the answer for nature is always, I want to survive.  The fox is in hen house to eat to survive, and we made it nice lunch box, and then killed it when it came to collect the meals we so kindly laid out for it.  We penned in the range animals, and kept all the goodness of their flesh to ourselves. We killed the wolves not because they ate people, like dogs around the food bowl we chased off our rivals.  This existential crisis of just the struggle to survive molded us and shaped us into the most successful predator on the planet bar none.  That being on the top of the food chain looking down on all the lesser species is pretty nice spot, it's good to be the king no doubt.  Being at the top, and staying at the top are not the same, and getting to top means your not what you were when you started.  We celebrate our predatory nature everywhere, from world wars to gold diggers, from pirates to emperors.  The monuments to our depravity know no bounds, from triumphal arches to tombs we proclaim our divine heritage of immortality.  All in the confused attempt to be remembered, to live on, to proclaim our own mastery over all we survey.  This is where our delusions of grandeur really kick in,  We start to believe our own hype, and our success translates into leisure time as we have come to call it.  This is the true mark of a successful predator, how little time they spend on survival. For those fortunate few at the top of the food chain, it's everywhere, this new found leisure time allows for reflection.  Not just to plan the next meal, but more abstract, things not so immediate in the world currently inhabited find the space to become known.  A shift starts to occur, to manage your food, because lets face it, your not as young as you were last year, and well how many times can you chase a rabbit till the thrill gets old.  So we take the tasty stuff, and shape it, bend it to our will, protect it from those who would take it, you know normal human stuff.  At this point we already won, we have no natural predator to contend with, nothing to keep our expansion in check.  As predators though we are ever vigilant, lest some scavenger steal our kill, if we lack a predator we make one up, when we run out decent prey, we move on looking for new places to hunt.  With nothing else left to do we even hunt each other, oh we give it all sorts of reasons, but it always come down to the 2 choices we decided were the only ones we have.  We do it because we want what they have, or we are afraid they will take whats ours.  Having nothing else to contend with, having effectively already won the struggle for day to day survival, ensuring our genetic heritage is continued.  We have time to place ourselves in the cosmic fun house, and the picture is as majestic as it horrifying.  This is when we begin to get that glimpse of our next existential crisis. Having conquered death in an immediate fashion, it becomes a personal struggle, the, but what about me's kick in.  We know our blood will be flowing and pumping even if it's through anothers veins, but still it isn't enough.  The I is screaming in terror, what happens to me, I did all this work to get here, and I'm still going to die. After fighting death for so long, we begin a new battle, now we are after time.  How many years can you cling to life becomes the new game, and being predators we play it with gusto.  In the time game anything not you becomes a greater threat the longer it hangs around,  just like an infection setting in, or how food rots, we start to learn with profound shock, if your not living, your dying.  Or a bit more accurately, when you stop growing, you start dying, even closer, if your not expanding your contracting.  This of course is still only a 2 choice idea, it's still locks us into an illusion of choice.  If the battle is life and death, and answer shouted by everything is always life how do we reconcile this dichotomy.  How can we celebrate the victor in the arena when he dripping in the blood, sweat, and feces of his opponent.  How do we tell our children, that it's not ok to hurt others, and when we decide they are no longer children shove a gun in their hand and tell them to kill their neighbor, or be killed.  No death is not our boogeyman any more, we coax, and torture nature to provide not what we need, or even what we reasonably desire.  We squeeze the golden goose till it bleeds gold, till it's lushest oziest parts are dripping down our chin, staining our silk tie, cotton shirt, lizard skin belt, leather pants, and fur trimmed alligator boots till we puke.  We squeeze the last drop, fish the oceans dry, not out of need, for our needs are modest, we do it because we have been offered no other options.  Consume, or be consumed.  Once our opponents are long dusty, and our glory is fading we miss the good old simpler days, those we overcame taking on status in the telling of our own stories.  Yes we carry our demons with us, and with every passing year they become larger, and our deeds in over coming them more heroic.  We Proclaim it to all Money doesn't grow on trees you know, and the giving tree withers it's leaves stripped bear, it's bark yanked free, it's flesh made pulp and reconstituted so we can make some pretty pictures on it, and call it ours.  I don't hate money, money is an idea, and in the realm of ideas I swim with the sharks.  I've been exposed to the trivium, and quadrivium, pi, phi, and even the Harris curve, our newest choice of curves, a new path to follow, a new star before our eyes.  We build our temples to our creators, where babies cries are shunned. We rip our ugly growths from our own flesh, and call it cancer, and deny it's attachment to our emotions.  Oh make no mistake we have damned ourselves for sure, for in our process of becoming, we have to live with what we've done. This is our state of terror, our splash of liquid light, our stairway to heaven, and highway to hell. Dharma, Karma, Sin, our triplets of story, our mistresses of fate.  Weighing our heart against perfection, the living can not pass, for the living sit in judgment, while the dead just watch it pass. The living write the story down, building, destroying, crafting. Deluding themselves all the while, with pretty little dreams, of I can do no harm.  We label ourselves dogs, and wolves, black widows, snakes, bears and list goes on and on, than we wonder why we kill.  Our own sophistication has become our trap de jour, and I'm crazy enough to be handing out peter pan advice. In our marvel of our own magnificence our march to greater contrast, our rush to ever bigger, bolder, badder.  We circle our wagons, lock down the prison, close the bathroom door, all because we can't stand the smell of our own shit.  I've been eating shit my whole life, there is no possible way for me to deny it, I gave my top teeth eating the shit put in front of me, oh it's lies were so sweet.  The numbing of the mind, of the soul, of the heart, that sweet oblivion of nothingness to take away the anguish of being a pimp or ho.  I'm so tired of eating shit for being me, for seeing things I see, I will always chose my truth over your lies, I have to, it's the only way I can live, and die with myself.

Life eats Life, it's all there is, when you make it all one, we end up eating our own shit, you might think me mad, and that is fine we are all mad here, that is not in question.  The question we are asking is can we live with ourselves, for eating ourselves.  Meat is Murder, and it's all sucking off someone elses tit, we all know these things, they are not new or novel. Don't believe me, well take a look at these. shit burger  it doesn't even matter if it's a hoax, or fact, that it's there.  That we have become so pained by where meat comes from that people have even contemplated this rings alarm bells.  If thats not your speed how about this.

    That is adorable little girl is Taylor Momsen, in the Grinch, many of you know here from a tv show she did that I don't recall. Some know now, as the lead singer of The Pretty Reckless.  For much of America she grew up on their tv screens, I missed that part as I was absorbing myself in other worlds to escape the pain of lying in my bed. While I was distracted by the glitter of the lights in the distance, She went from singing 

Fahoo Fores Dahoo Dores
Welcome Christmas Come this way
Fahoo Fores Dahoo Dores
Welcome Christmas, Christmas day
Welcome, welcome fahoo ramus
Welcome, welcome dahoo damus
Christmas day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp

More lyrics http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/dr_seuss/welcome_christmas-lyrics-1146415.html#ixzz3U6AtBZ30

To a lovely young woman who's words I hear on many lips, from many tongues.  Thank you Ms. Momsen, while I do not really do the fan thing, I see you, and your beautiful to me.  This is the price of our denial of nature, this bitter pill is our salvation. In our death spiral of guilt, over all our perceived failures, our pitfalls of loss, we finally give up the ghost. Not because we have to die, because we no longer can take the pain of being alive, and what we have to do to stay that way.

The world devours it's young, Because we like sweets, and babies taste best. It doesn't matter how twisted the appetite. The old say youth is wasted on the young, while the young scream never trust anyone over 30.  The age old struggle, the old lion wants to keep his pride, while the young just wants a piece of tail.  The widow ate her suitor after he dropped of his seed, not from grief hatred or malice, she knows he'll eat the young, cuz it's good to be the king, But not when there can only be one.

I love you all, it's just a matter if you can accept the only love I know how give, cuz its a jagged little pill.

listen to the music, not just the beat, pay attention to the story, it's your soul speaking

Make up your own mind

Jack

aka

panseybard

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all

          Being what most people have termed a Grinch when it comes to holidays, I wanted to take a moment to say how thankful I am for each and everyone of you. Without you, I would not be me. You help define me in ways I have trouble communicating clearly.  I cherish and honor all the pieces of self you allow me to discover in you.  When your not around I am diminished, it is the eternal light that shines forth from you that illuminates my soul.  I do not claim to know what did or did not happen back in the early days of the Plymouth colony. Being told the roots of my family run back to those days is humbling, I only hope the stories of sharing, caring, and understanding can radiate into our present moment.

      

      So thank you for your challenges

      Thank you for your rage

      Bless you, for your patience

      Your acceptance of my flaws

      Allowing me my misfortunes

      While not holding me to a past

      I may not be able to recall without tears

Much Love

Jack

aka

PanseyBard   

Who's idea was this Random thing anyway?

        One of my favorite people to learn about has always been Einstein.  He seems such the tragic figure to me, working tirelessly on fundamental questions of existence to the point of only being partially functional here.  There is a quote attributed to him goes something along the lines of "god does not play dice with creation".  This is something that has in the past given me fits, Einstein brilliant enough to give relativity theory, and be instrumental in the bomb. I say the bomb cuz, lets face it once you have that one how many others do you need?  I mean come on the guys name has become a word for smart person.  So of course any halfway intelligent person is gonna use them as a measuring stick.
         Well I always came up short, not on relativity, or energy to matter conversion. I came up short on God. I could not conceive of a "God" that would not just allow for the horrors I saw, but insist on them.  The conception of randomness became a balm for a pain inflicted on my soul by my own creator.  I needed the idea somethings just happened and could not be explained in any meaningful way. Even that stops being randomness when you start to be able to see more and more of the variables.  What is true has always been true. GOD does not play dice with creation, but sure does play with the math.  Even in computers there are no such thing as random numbers, they approximate it.  In the so called "real world" events we tend to call random are anything but. We may or may not understand the totality of an event, that doesn't mean there isn't one.  So when your told you are well loved, and cared for, believe it, or don't.
       For a clearer example of just what I mean, lets take a look at roulette. On the surface this is a sucker game, and I can not deny it is, as a physical game.  Due to so many variables of a physical nature it is almost impossible to predict what numbers will come up next, as well as a skilled croupier will be become proficient enough to influence the outcome intentionally.  That being said take this sucker game into the realm of the almighty 0,1 of the digital verse and blamo suck game becomes potential profit maker.  Once in a place where random is a thing striven for, we can use that with the payouts, and table limits to slowly make steady gains. The idea is very simple, if I bet 1 credit on # 9  and the payout is 36 to 1, then I do not actually lose any money till the 36th spin, as which point instead of 1 credit, you put 2, this gives you an additional 18 spins before you have lost anything.  Of course this is a very simplified version of what I actually set up, as I was starting with the entire game board covered, and would remove them as they hit. Keeping track of the number of spins a current progression had gone, what numbers still needed to be played for the next spin, and how much needed to be bet on each number.  It seems tougher then it is, it's only a few tables to memorize and then keep track of whats hit which the machine does for you, you just take off the last one.  To tie it up, when you start a progression keep track of your credits. If you are over where you started even by a credit or 2, start over.  Believe it or not the first spin of the progression was the best.

Well hope that gives ya pause at least in thinking lol

Jack

The Stories We Tell

            I warn you this post will not be for the feint of heart, and this is your spoiler alert.  I'm going to tell you a story, or many stories. I'm going to show how we use story to create the shared experience.  First I'd like go back a little to the question that started me on this personal journey of the impersonal nature of self.
           I've read tons, and part of that has led me to the repetition of the stories we tell.  The same myth's being repackaged again, and again, the names may alter, details shift over time, or distance to tailor the story.  My questions were about who would be spreading these stories, and why?  What follows is where those questions have taken me.  I make no claims to answers, just perceptions, make of them what you will.
     
          Why do we tell these stories over and over, and what does their retelling do to and for us?  The shared tales of childhood give us a frame of reference to relate to each other.  These stories handed down for generations, Disney has redone them, reskined them and sold them again. These form the bridges that span the gulf between us. They give shape to our very experience of reality itself.  Every nation has it's own story it pass on to it's citizens to give cultural cohesion. Each of us uses these stories to help flesh out our own running narrative. They help define how we see ourselves, others, and the world as a whole.
         This next bit might attack some of the most cherished held notions of self.  What we typically think of as the self is really the ego attached to the physical form.  The ego has no identity, it is ego. The job it performs is the protection of the physical.  The way it creates it's identity is a running narrative of all it's experiences up to the present moment. As we all know memory is a slippery thing, we don't remember things like a video recording. We color it with emotions, present, and past. We are forgiving in ways we never would be in the now.  Like the ideal future we see around the bend, the past becomes idealized.  We then tie our sense of self to this narrative. Limiting our view of self to a few decades.  In a real sense our identity is a story we tell ourselves, and broadcast to existence.
        I played mmorpg's, so this next part is going to be told from that framework.
there may be terms I use which you are unfamiliar with if you care to you can find definitions here.  When you log into an mmorpg for the first time you have to create a character, or avatar. This is the character you use to interact in the game world. Each game has it's own set of customization options, these may include species/ races, colors of all kinds and generally you choose a class/job to start out with.  Each game has a different set of options you must choose before you ever even enter the game.  Some worlds even have no set job/class to chose going in, but like this world it's something you develop through playing.  Now these choices are all being made before your avatar ever enters the world, from your avatars perspective they had no say in them. This is very much like apparently randomness of the "accident" of our births.  Now I might play in several different game worlds, in each the rules are different and I am a different avatar.    This seems like a good time to introduce a couple of rpg concepts metagaming, and persistent  worlds. Metagaming is simply the act of bringing the real world into the game world. This is something that in mmorpg's is the norm, in the days of pen and paper rpgs this would result in stiff penalties at the game masters discretion.  Persistent Worlds is the idea that the world keeps going even when your not in it.  Think of it like when you sleep the world keeps spinning, things happen that you then catch up on when you wake.  The same thing happens here from a metagame perspective.  When a body dies the player logs out, and goes back to their real world. Some people immediately create a new avatar and reenter the world.  The trick is due to the true function of karma they don't start back at level 1, they leave off kinda where they were.  Others take a break, and go do other things whatever those may be. While they are gone this world being a world of time/space continues on. By the time that player chooses to log back into this world they may not even recognize it, As well as having to now catch up to those that have been playing in the more recent linear past.
        How you may be asking does this relate to the idea of story being a major component of how we create our perception of reality?  Well stay with me, the stories are how we not just define, put also our place in it. The stories tell us the rules everyone else is playing by. See this world could be likened to a double blind set up.  We intentional hide the connection to source and through that all that is, not once, but twice. This is shown in the esoteric teachings as the veils, or the abyss separating the physical realm from god or source or first cause. This double blind, or as I think of it multi layered delusion ensures the attachment to the physical body as the identity of self.  When your going to have a limited physical experience, and believe it as real you have to not just have a sense of separation from others, but also a sense of separation from source. This encourages the identification with the body.  Since the ego is actually a new born entity, it has no choice but to craft an identity for itself  amalgam of  it's experience thus far, and they collective stories it's been imprinted with through repetition.
       There is also a feed back effect built into the system as a whole. creation itself seeks to adapt to the needs of those within it.  This is also leads back to why the stories are so important. The stories help reinforce the world itself. For me it isn't an esoteric question of primacy between, mind, body, spirit. It's the idea that form is a product of mind, creating structure from chaos is a product of mind.  This is the realm where patterning takes place, where story does it's work.

if there is any desire I will give a more detailed look at how the tarot as a representation of the tree of life can be used to show the story, the characters, and the actions.

Jack
aka
PanseyBard