Positive Impact Living: 05/09/2010

Saturday, 11 September 2010

'Where there are dolphins there are rarely sharks?'

I am truly encouraged to see positive responses to extremism happening all around the world. The book burners are being drowned out by folk giving away the Quran. The extremist and prejudiced folk are being told they should be the ones going to self-help groups (at least I just said that anyway).

'Where there are dolphins - there are rarely sharks' Angela Shelton

And here there are dolphins. There are dolphins swimming and jumping through the waves of violence all over this planet. Dolphins like Andrea Gibson the poet who should have more news coverage than almost any other person. We need her words like dried up hearts need liquid love tsunamis.

I was thinking this morning about the whole 'coming out thing'. Do you expect straight people to 'come out' as straight? No, of course not; well why should anyone else 'come out'. It's you people who are uncomfortable in your prejudice that need to come out. You need to admit you have a problem whether it's 'I am a racist or I am homophobic' whatever form of prejudice or hatred it is.

Being gay is natural, it is inconsequential.

Being racist/homophobic/mysoginist/any-ism however is unnatural and has negative consequences. You need to deal with your issues. You really need to sort it out.

I hate to have to give you a geography lesson but I think its necessary.

There are 6billion other people apart from yourself living in this floating round house and every single one of them is different from you, we're all unique, each of us has our own internal galaxies.

I think we need an intervention on a massive scale. I looked for resources to help racists, or homophobes willing to consider recovery; but mostly I could only find books for therapists. You could say there is a huge gap in the market right there. Maybe if we generate a cultural trend of expecting them to address and recover from their issues such an actuality will occur

One book I happily stumbled across was 'Healing - A journal of tolerance and understanding' by Mohammed Ali

"If today's world is to be truly healed, that healing must be achieved one person at a time. The tolerance and understanding necessary to heal must come from each and every one of us, arising out of our everyday conduct, until decency reaches a flood tide." Mohammed Ali

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Sunday, 5 September 2010

The hypocrisy of democracy and capitalism and an exit strategy

My FB friend said 'I hate negativity' and I pointed out that as much as I agreed, it was an oxymoron as hate is negative. She then went onto say that it was intended as a statement against hypocrites! A valuable observation.

Sometimes on Facebook or here I will post subjects or perspectives that are negative; the suffering of others, of the earth is not a positive subject. I am angry against injustice. Again anger is not necessarily positive; it can be confrontational and immediately put people on the defensive if they think it is directed at them. When anger is directed at injustice, at a behaviour, or anger arising as frustration at the lack of options; is such anger negative or is it an opportunity for change, a powerful uprising of energy that can shift previously insurmountable obstacles.

I guess it depends on how it is used. Often we internalise it or project it onto others un-skillfully. How do we learn to USE it?

Some how I think society forces us to be hypocritical. It is very very hard these days to make original, unblemished choices that aren't affected some way by a multitude of things we don't all know about.

I speak out against violence against women - but I write on a laptop and speak on a phone made with coltan secured by the FDLR of the Congo; who rape women and children thus dominating local villages and scaring the men folk enabling them to retain possessions of the mines that provide the coltan/gold/metals in return for their weapons.

I eat food provided by oil driven transport, use clothing carried on it - in fact its hard to find anything untouched by oil - yet I speak out against the oil industry. We ask for ethical options and choices but they're often prohibitive.

You can only go organic/eco if you have land, time or the money. Not if you're forced to rent, living on credit or similar situations that apply to most of us. (Try co-housing/housing co-operatives/land trusts btw as a positive alternative)

I am angry at the hypocrisy that is forced upon us. Is anger always negative? Are we all submissive to a far greater hypocrisy that we are obliged to somehow disentangle ourselves from - is it possible to be free of it and to honestly have a free choice?

We can try. I'm sure it is measurable, our integrity? To know for sure we have to pare down how we relate with the world to actions that are clear and within our authority. We have to build positive relationships with others (who are also integrating in an ethical manner) that are the means for sustaining ourselves.

There is no option to choose being unsustainable - because ultimately that is finite. So the only choice is transitioning to being sustainable in all the ways this pertains - being nice to each other for one...

This is a truth, a fundamental - its like Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha or 'holding to the truth' that he defeated the British occupation of India with. Because the truth was - it was unjust. The truth of injustice, of the unsustainable and unethical are never hard to see all though I think there is a concerted effort whether it is intentional or not) to pool the wool over the eyes of the masses, of the general public as though we are so many sheep.

So on the back of that, of understanding we have a choice between injustice or justice, between the sustainable or unsustainable - we can stand firm and direct our wills in one direction; towards justice, sustainability and integrity.

Its about being human, not whatever identity we might narrow that field to; be it religion or nation or whatever; they might be our personal values, but in living together on this planet into the future, in making a better world those things are secondary. Life is a priority everyone's lives. Human rights were designed to stop the progression of prejudice into intolerable cruelty it's about time we learned to adhere to them.