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5/27/11

We Have Lost Nothing

We are gaining something new...

Our society has lost something that is making many people feel displaced. It is causing a lot of individuals to go through the stages of grief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and for the healthiest of us...Acceptance. Everyone at different times and each in his or her own way. Those who have arrived at acceptance understand that we haven't lost anything of value at all. What we recognize is that we have been forever dispossessed of social norms that no longer have validity and outlived their purpose. There is no turning back to return to the old ways no matter how many attempts are made to resuscitate what once was.

What seems to appear to underlie this divestment is the economic crisis and the awareness of the ineffectiveness of the political class. It is the trigger but not the bullet. The cartridge that was fired held shotgun ammo that blasted into little pieces disrupting the entire order of life as we knew it. The economics and politics of our social disorder are the symptoms of the wound and not origination of it. Technology and science are. The paradox is these two fields of endeavor that have advanced so far in recent history are also agents of change bringing us back to a more natural way of living. The most notable of this is the internet allowing people to be freed from cubicle land and constraints of traditional employment to create a new way of living.

Not everyone has arrived at this point of thinking yet, just as the Age of Enlightenment occurred over a number of years, so will this magnificent cultural shift. Some people may languish in the old sphere and possibly never arrive in the new one. This is the source of the impression of no longer being in the corral but instead on the wide open range, the polar opposite of the way we have been trained to become one of the posse. The drift of being untethered is bewildering in a world when the exact opposite has been highly valued and what was stressed we should strive for. This is the seemingly odd juxtaposition of technology and science versus natural thinking and living. A Global Positioning System device cannot guide us to a mental state of mind, only human intelligence and intuition can do that. Hence the sense of dislocation.

What will separate us in society is how we grasp this concept, brave the barely marked trail and forge ahead in contemporary covered wagons. Those that cling to the old will find their grip slipping, making themselves frustrated and angry. Each person has to arrive at their destination in their own caravan. We can help others that instinctively seek it but there is little to do for those that don't.

2 comments:

  1. I read this post early yesterday, on about three hours' sleep in a couple days and thinking too wildly to get what you were saying. I tried to comment and am for once glad that Blogger had me confused; I needed some more time to absorb it.

    This is a brilliant post. You are the first person I am aware of who has based our confusion and trepidation upon our fear of freedom. You didn't state it that way (and I am sorry if I have it wrong) but your argument that science and technology have led to more natural lives rings completely true with me.

    We are (all of us) a bunch of people who are to greater or lesser extents "used to" the way things have been. Combine that with all the things which science and tech have changed-and the relative ease of joining in on the deal-and it's...still not easy to understand why some people don't seek it.

    I intended to argue against your last sentence yesterday. It was the optimist in me. I still think optimism is a great thing to have but I don't think it's fair to spread it across a bunch of people you don't know.

    Personal experiences and contact are what matter. No one ever legislated a hero, and no one ever beat a hero into anyone.


    I'll leave this at that, JR. And I'll shut up other than to thank you and say the two pictures were perfect twins. Fraternal ones, of course. :)

    GREAT post, JR!

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  2. I think you've captured the essence of what I am trying to get across these days and knowing that you did gives me hope and satisfaction. I no longer can focus on how what happens, happens but only on how to look ahead to the future and get through it.

    Actually I think things are also worse than we want to admit. We are a nation that is breaking down but will not be broken except into smaller pieces, both geographically and mentally. By that I mean there are those who will try to keep us whole as a nation in the old way of doing things but that is dying and we will segment ourselves in geographic pockets. We are moving on into a different era where the optimists will be the survivors and we have to be honest with ourselves…we cannot save those who do not want to survive as free people and we must learn to accept to let them go and whatever fate befalls them as terrible as that sounds.

    In some ways I think those who are survivalists, meaning those who escape into the woods to be self-sufficient preparing for the total collapse are merely survivalists but not necessarily survivors.

    I hope that made sense (enough anyway that I may write a blog or do a vlog about it). Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated and thanks for reading and the compliment.

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