I want to tell you what is happening in the culture
Our people are afraid They do not know how they are going to die But even more frightening is how they are going to live
What does it mean to live?
How do you live?
Are you aware of yourself?
We are very aware our own being We have consciousness But we can only see what is physical We feel things Anger Joy Pain Jealousy Fear
Let me see if I can explain it
I feel pain So I exist I cannot feel your pain But I can imagine it I fear for my children therefore they are as real as I perceive them to be in the light of my anxiety If I see you is my conclusion clouded by the mere fact of perception? Would I know you better had I never met you? Would it be better if I never knew you? Because then I could not describe you and my silence might be closer to the truth leaving you as everyone else but deviant in terms of more or less depending on your perceptions of who you are and how you should interact If I experience you do I know you? Or do I only know you as I affect you? Can I tell another about you? Or will my perception **** my objectivity? Is it better not to experience as a method of knowing? Is it better that I not verify who you are? Instead only imagining without the use of my senses? Shall I close my eyes? My ears? My mind? Can only a baby be objective? Is pain the only objective feeling? I knew pain at birth But knew nothing else What do I know now? I know what makes me happy I see what happens to others I hope it doesn't happen to me But I have little idea in the point of all this I know as much as I did the day I was born Will you live in a better world if you are not described by me? If I hear what you say how can I know what you mean? Are you being sincere? Or calculated? Are you understanding what it is you say? Am I understanding what you say when I cannot know if you understand what you say? All I can know is that you take up space And that time has passed But how can I know this? I cannot occupy the same space Though I heard your utterance I am not waiting for it It happened And so time has passed as I know time to be So there must be space and time Because I am affected By time and space And so I am But are you? Does A equal A? It does if I don’t question what I see or what I hear But if I speak then you are lost because I only perceive you as an object But do I know?
Do you see what I’m saying? Maybe you can explain it to me You came here and I’m the first person you encountered If you leave after talking to me you may know everything you need to know But I’m not the answer to any of your questions I live here For a while anyway We believe lots of things about why we are here We believe lots of things about what happens when we die Do you die? We do And if we are good at anything it’s not thinking about dying It is too overwhelming to think about We are not good when things overwhelm us
People are born and they die Born? What does it mean to be born? It means to come into existence But you must come into existence from someone who already exists And it is painful for them And it will become more painful for them as it grows apart from its creator
People die as they expire They die as they are killed Dying is when your time is up Being killed is when someone else takes your time But we don’t know
Do you know fear? We do For ourselves And our culture
What is our culture?
It can be many things It can be the color of our skin It can be the language we speak It can be where we were born But really it’s in the way we think We start with our mother Our Father Our brother Our sister
Then it becomes more It becomes about where we belong
We hate being alone
We hate being alone
I can’t say that enough
Did you know we judge one another?
What does it mean to judge?
It means to decide who is worthy and who is not
How do we judge?
It doesn’t matter how we judge We just do We pick whatever it may be that makes us feel better The color of their skin The language that they speak Where they were born The way they think
But usually it is about our circumstances We don’t like poor people But it’s really because we want to believe they made themselves that way It’s a superiority complex rooted in our desperation
It’s not good enough anymore to just eat and live in a hut Yes, we want comfort We don’t like to be too hot or too cold We don’t like to feel hungry We don’t like to be uncomfortable
Why is it so hard to be comfortable?
I don’t know It just is We have to work very hard to be comfortable Not just for a day But for our entire life
We love it when we don’t have to work so hard But it’s not good enough not to work We must go somewhere A different place A mountain An ocean A place with old buildings
Then there’s drugs
That is how we escape as we sit Or stand
You see most people cannot change their minds Not their opinions Their minds Not as they sit there Something artificial must do it for them Or they must wait a long time But they have to want to change their minds And they have to know how But nobody teaches us very well Some people act like they know how to teach us But we have to do it ourselves
The strongest people we know are those who know they are going to die Yew, we all know we’re going to die But we are ok as long as we don’t know when But when someone say’s when Or soon Then it’s on That’s when you know you are alive And it’s like being on a drug Because your mind changes And everyone is amazed by your strength We can’t imagine knowing We don’t want to know The only way we can survive is to know we have a long life ahead of us
And yet we continue to struggle
Let me tell you what is happening in the culture
We cannot decide why we are here We cannot decide how we got here Did someone create us? Or did we just happen? Neither choice is easy to understand Or accept So we divide ourselves But those who believe we were created have divided even further
It seems they want to be the chosen people
They want to be the ones who are the favorite of the creator
Why?
Because we are afraid
The most difficult thing it seems for a human is to believe in equality This means you are the same as everyone else But it matters that we are not We want to be special We write books about it We sing songs about it We pray about it
The only way to be equal is to believe the same thing If you do not believe as does another then you are not equal Or so it seems You are different Yet the creator remains silent
So we believe Shamans
Wise men from India
People who reject the ways of money
Or at least those who appear to reject money
And yet they need money too
But there is something new to consider You You have not been included in our consciousness We wondered about you But you are not a part of our beginning or how we end as a species We think we are all there is
But that is no longer true
So what does it mean?
That is what is going on with the culture The search for meaning Is there more than to live To love our children To love another human being Is there more to it than that?
Do you know?
You see we are not very interesting Unless fear means something to you Unless you enjoy watching people do things that make no sense Unless you enjoy cruelty Unless you enjoy greed Unless you enjoy lies Unless you enjoy conflict
Then we are a very interesting species
But we cannot tell you how to live
Because we don't know how
We don't know how to live or how to die
So we wait for an answer
Do you have one?
It may just be watching Joe Cocker screaming about getting help from his friends