by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News
Oct 28, 2005
The list of horror stories, probable horror stories, and plausible horror stories (many of which are created or at least exploited to generate fear) is becoming mind boggling. We are becoming overcome by our own imaginations. We are becoming subdued by our fears. We are becoming convinced that we do not know what to do and, consequently, that we will not survive. Answering the rhetorical question that is on everyone's minds, no matter what faction, or lack of faction, they may represent, is about as presumptuous as I can manage to be.
"What in the hell is going on?" thinks the man in the street. Implied in this question is the assumption that "what is going on" is knowable, that somewhere in a secret room some small group of people knows.
Wrong. Such groups of men (and a few women) exist, but they only delude themselves that they know what is going on to quiet the panic that they feel when they confront their ignorance in the face of relentless change. Such people are tempted to slake their fear by mobilizing vast resources to manipulate events in their favor, but their fear only grows as they watch their attempts at controlling events go so badly off center that their only possible response is to generate more secrecy and disinformation to hide their manifest impotence in the face of changes that they can nether understand or influence in any effective way. The inescapable result is that reality goes surreal.
"Intelligence" itself becomes an oxymoron, and the fear spreads. People, in their panic, make up stories to fill the void. Absolutist thinking of every flavor competes to be "the answer," when no one knows or understands the actual forces at work. A modern Tower of Babel is created as people retreat to absolutist versions of "what's going on" that translation can not assuage.
Those who feel they know "what's going on" are recruited to act in concert with like-minded individuals, and the whole group heads off half-cocked to take action without true understanding. Members of such groups, be they religious or political, come to feel that only those committed to their restricted belief system can understand them, and consequently they surrender any understanding of other groups. Much shouting and gesticulating ensues, that signifies nothing.
So what are we mere mortals to do? Should we attempt to take action in the face of our manifest ignorance? Should we look to experts and charismatic leaders to show us the way?
Frankly, no. This is how we got in the trouble that we now face.
What we can do is question.
Start with ourselves, and as an understanding of who we are develops, only then move on to understanding our relationships to others. Are we playing host to some log in our own eye? Are we deluding ourselves that we are going to find some high ground on which to survive the chaotic changes that are moving over the horizon?
Do we really need the expensive accouterments of success? Are we caring more about our own welfare than the welfare of those we love and who depend on us?
Are we sinking ever deeper into the quicksand of dependency on centers of power? Are we becoming our job and losing ourselves?
Do we feel good about what we do in our fantasy struggle for survival? Have we developed a self concept that is so weak that we feel we can take no risks, that we can have no confidence in our independent thought?
What we can do, and which is so roundly treated with contempt by this materialistic society, is spend time with our selves. We can give up pretensions of perfection, of superiority, abandon grasping at power and privilege, and start doing little things -- baby steps, if you will, that begin a journey to a spiritual self that, in the words of the prayer, accepts that that is beyond our control, tries to change what is under our control, and hopes that we develop the wisdom to know the difference. One thing that is very much under our control is what we choose to believe.
With so much contradictory information, so much rapid change, the urge is to withdraw into rigid belief, to close off the drive to question and explore. This is a human trait based in fear. This human foible has no respect for one's political or religious point of view or the depth of one's knowledge or experience. If you are induced to believe that you must be afraid then you are on your way into a mental cage, and likely into the service of some power that you do not understand.
While it is good to be circumspect, to be careful of hazards, it is foolish to choose to be fearful. Jesus is reported to have said, "Be gentle as a dove, and wise as a serpent." As a fearful person you can not be a true friend or lover because at the back of your mind is the visualized possibility that you will have to betray trust to survive. So be irrationally confident. It is the best position from which to make good choices.
Remember that you are the product of eons of evolution, perfected by trial and error to be a survivor -- if you can just keep your head and not panic. I find it useful to remind myself, as I am washed along in the latest horrible revelation about the world, that this current revelation is only the latest increment of plausible truth to surface, and that I will undoubtedly have to deal with much, much worse to come as the veils of secrecy are pierced by the rush of events.
If I expend all my energy worrying about, or worse yet trying not to worry about, the latest frightening specter, then how in the hell do I expect to be able to cope when action is actually needed?
I remind myself that other people, who are just like me, when called upon to help each other in the throws of a disaster, generally turn out to be equal to the challenge. When we stop being beguiled by belief and just respond to each others needs, as evolution has equipped us to do, then we do remarkably well.
There is nothing wrong with humans that can not be remedied by separating us from the sick thinking of the social norms that rule our mundane existence.
Crime happens. Government happens. Shit happens. And we remain the exquisite miracle that we are.
When we are induced to stop believing in the perfection that we are, when we are induced to see ourselves as weak, hopeless, helpless creatures, we give rise to the very destructive energies that afflict us.
Our birthright is peace, abundance and joy. We can have it as soon as we learn to trust ourselves and claim it.
© by the author.
What do you think?
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Crime happens.
Government happens.
Shit happens.
And we remain
the exquisite miracle that we are. |
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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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Daubert is the most influential Supreme Court ruling you've never heard of
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Enough already
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The gangsters' mentality
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