Mar 2014
Today, we live in a world bound together by a plethora of interlocking mechanisms and systems, some social/political, and a great many technological, but most remain economic(for reasons of simple profit and pragmatism). In a time where the rate at which new technologies are developed is being reduced by a specific ratio in relation to the complexity and modernization of the societies in which they are developed, and the impact they have on said societies can be measured to a certain degree, it is a wonder to me that human beings have not applied our gifts of invention and improvisation to other parts of our existence.
I'm not a psychologist or sociologist or anthropologist, therefore I don't want to seem as if I'm attaching weight to any of my conclusions or opinions. I'm simply trying to put down in words a condensed version of many hours worth of contemplation and conversation. That being said, it seems almost as if the further we advance into the unknown future, technologically and scientifically, we further ourselves somewhat from many of the facets of existence that can be said to make us human beings. While the limits of understanding are being extended in laboratories and universities the world over, and the fruits of the endeavor trickle down to us in the way of items such as smart phones with more computing power than a room sized processor from 1970, our social structure has not progressed at a similar rate. While back breaking poverty and oppression on the feudal level aren't daily facts of life for the vast majority of us in developed industrialized society, modern existence has created it's own demons in the demand for limitless profits in an economy(no matter how much of it is superficially called "Service industry") which is based upon finite means of production, whether they be labour or resource based. This is not what concerns me, most of the time, anyway it **** sure doesn't keep me up at night. What does keep me awake till dawn are the deeply personal experiences that have brought me to see the extremes of human suffering, the kind of suffering which is marginalized and ignored because it has no place in our 'civilized' status quo. I will say bluntly that those who do the marginalizing have never carried their friend away from a house party after she was *****, never set their shirt on fire in the middle of the street because it had ***** from the ****** on it, never bandaged the self-inflicted wounds of another (and wiped off the word '****' which she had written on herself in her own blood), nor seen a thousand year old village obliterated in about 3 seconds, never seen what kind of horror people have the capacity to inflict on each other....as I have. There are many of us who have experienced these things, many who have experienced far worse, and to them I offer my deepest respect and compassion.
The realm of the human heart is the same landscape our forefathers journeyed through in the age of Richard Couer de Lion, the questions many of us ask are the same as well. But there is a difference, and it isn't technological. The serf toiling in the dirt of medieval France had no separation between himself and the land he worked, and to a similar extant, the modern Afghani sees no separation between himself and the will of Allah, which is what binds his entire universe together. Only we here in the First World have been abstracted into units of economic output, reduced to numbers and symbols, and only we no longer know what our place in the world is, or how we relate to each other. I want to know why.
I'm not a psychologist or sociologist or anthropologist, therefore I don't want to seem as if I'm attaching weight to any of my conclusions or opinions. I'm simply trying to put down in words a condensed version of many hours worth of contemplation and conversation. That being said, it seems almost as if the further we advance into the unknown future, technologically and scientifically, we further ourselves somewhat from many of the facets of existence that can be said to make us human beings. While the limits of understanding are being extended in laboratories and universities the world over, and the fruits of the endeavor trickle down to us in the way of items such as smart phones with more computing power than a room sized processor from 1970, our social structure has not progressed at a similar rate. While back breaking poverty and oppression on the feudal level aren't daily facts of life for the vast majority of us in developed industrialized society, modern existence has created it's own demons in the demand for limitless profits in an economy(no matter how much of it is superficially called "Service industry") which is based upon finite means of production, whether they be labour or resource based. This is not what concerns me, most of the time, anyway it **** sure doesn't keep me up at night. What does keep me awake till dawn are the deeply personal experiences that have brought me to see the extremes of human suffering, the kind of suffering which is marginalized and ignored because it has no place in our 'civilized' status quo. I will say bluntly that those who do the marginalizing have never carried their friend away from a house party after she was *****, never set their shirt on fire in the middle of the street because it had ***** from the ****** on it, never bandaged the self-inflicted wounds of another (and wiped off the word '****' which she had written on herself in her own blood), nor seen a thousand year old village obliterated in about 3 seconds, never seen what kind of horror people have the capacity to inflict on each other....as I have. There are many of us who have experienced these things, many who have experienced far worse, and to them I offer my deepest respect and compassion.
The realm of the human heart is the same landscape our forefathers journeyed through in the age of Richard Couer de Lion, the questions many of us ask are the same as well. But there is a difference, and it isn't technological. The serf toiling in the dirt of medieval France had no separation between himself and the land he worked, and to a similar extant, the modern Afghani sees no separation between himself and the will of Allah, which is what binds his entire universe together. Only we here in the First World have been abstracted into units of economic output, reduced to numbers and symbols, and only we no longer know what our place in the world is, or how we relate to each other. I want to know why.
