November 2, 2006

• Another Tedious Philosophical/Metaphysical Post

  You don’t need to read this.  I need to write it.  If it’s
  over your head or beneath your notice, and you’d prefer the sort of
  superficial weather reports and personal daily diary posts you’ve been
  getting from me lately, just scroll down to the bottom.

  ---

  In response to

  yesterday’s political rant, I received a wish for, “…a heart at

  peace, and love for the whole world.”  I suppose that indicates

  the difficulties of, first, always accurately conveying what I’m

  thinking and feeling, and, also, having what I say received and

  understood without being filtered and distorted by the consciousnesses

  of my readers.  I’m thinking that a perfect accomplishment of both

  of those ambitions is probably impossible as long as the medium of

  communication is words, but that won’t stop me from trying to get as

  close to the ideal as I can.

  As I read those words, “a heart at peace, and love for the whole

  world,” I paused in reflection for a moment, a little systems check,

  and confirmed that indeed I do have a heart at peace, and I  feel universal

  unconditional love.  That’s not exactly what the writer wished for

  me; the Universe is greater than this one little planetary “world,” but

  I think I come close enough.  Should I thank the writer for the

  wish, maybe, on the theory that it came true and caused my elevated

  state of consciousness?  Hell no, friends!   Although I cannot honestly

  say I reached that state without a lot of help, I certainly have been

  there long before that wish ever occurred to that writer.

  Love, as I have said here many times before, is a troublesome and
  questionable word.   It means so many things to various
  people that it is, in effect, meaningless unless it is defined for any
  given instance.  My love for the beings of this Universe is not
  erotic, not the dependent, clinging and expectant “love” of a child for
  a parent.  There is no way in which my universal unconditional
  love can be expressed as a need or desire.  It didn’t happen to me
  – I didn’t just fall into it or have it dropped into my lap.  I
  made the choice to love, and I have frequently made the same choice
  every time I have been confronted with a personal dilemma or
  interpersonal conflict.  When I am in doubt about the correct
  course of action, I ask myself, “What would Love do?”

  I don’t judge my fellow beings.  When a four-legged animal’s
  behavior becomes a bother or a threat to me and mine, I take action to
  evict it from my space or eliminate the threat.  I don’t blame
  cats for acting feline or dogs for doing what dogs naturally do. 
  I don’t go out and track down bears, wolves, moose or other critters to
  interfere with them, nor do I interfere with their peaceful
  co-existence in my neighborhood and yard.  To some extent, my
  behavior toward my fellow domestic primates (the hairless apes) follows
  the same rules.

  I love them all.  It’s not the airy-fairy, warm and fuzzy,
  nurturing, I-want-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke, feeling that I’ve heard some
  people express.  It is, at its base, simply a certainty that we
  are all One.  I love them as I love myself, and that’s where I run
  up against the disapproval of some of my fellow beings.  I accept
  myself wholly and unconditionally, and I am scrupulous in continually
  checking and correcting my behavior.  In my Universal love for all
  my fellows, I am equally scrupulous about freely checking and
  correcting their behavior.  Greyfox kids around at Twelve-Step
  meetings by saying that I do a perfect Tenth Step:  when he is
  wrong, I promptly admit it.

  Not that I would ever act to
  keep anyone from engaging in a behavior that wasn’t harming me or
  mine.  I’m actually fairly laissez faire, even in matters such as
  second-hand smoke.  Nobody smokes in my house, but I don’t take
  any action to stop people from smoking on their own turf.  I’ll
  speak up sometimes, and say that I’m allergic to tobacco, but more
  often I am likely to just leave the smoky place.  It depends
  entirely on the situation.  If I choose to leave, it’s not in
  anger but in self-preservation, but people don’t always perceive it
  that way.  If I reveal my allergy, it is not with any expectation
  of special treatment, but that is also frequently misunderstood.

  Our cultural programming makes it difficult for some people to
  understand that I can accept and approve of them unconditionally, while
  not accepting or approving of all their behavior.  It is a very
  old idea, a “love the sinner, hate the sin,” thing, although I don’t
  tend to think in terms of sin and sinners.  I simply draw a
  distinction between beings and their behavior.   As I have
  stated emphatically many times, notably in my Emotional Self-Control Tool Kit
  post, one of my life’s ruling injunctions is, “Do nothing to damage
  your self-esteem.”  Unfortunately for the complacency,
  self-delusion and denial of some people, my self-esteem demands that I
  speak up and say what I see when I see someone behaving in a
  destructive, imprudent, fear-driven or foolish manner.  I don’t
  resort to ad hominem insults, but too many people take my criticism of
  their behavior as if it were a judgement on them.

  There is one very important way in which I choose not to treat other
  people as I treat myself.  I go easy on everyone but me.  I
  demand higher standards of behavior from me that from you.  I
  recognize that not everyone has had my advantages, hasn’t encountered
  the same excellent teachers I have (perhaps because they were not ready
  for them?).  I know that most people are culture-bound and either
  willingly or unwillingly misled.  I accept that as a fact, but not
  as something that needs to remain so.  I endeavor always to
  comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

  ---

  The sun is up and it is beginning
  to warm up.  It is up to three degrees above zero Fahrenheit
  now.  I overdid yesterday, taping the poly sheeting over the big
  front window while Doug was asleep.  That job had been on hold for
  a few days because I wanted to have him around for ground support to
  save me all the climbing up and down, but each day when he awoke I had
  been already too fatigued to tackle the job.

  I started it in the morning while I was still fresh, and before it was
  half done — plants moved out of the way, book shelves cleared so I
  could reach behind them, plastic sheet positioned and “tacked” in place
  at corners with strips of duct tape, and the first few long strips of
  duct tape applied to seal down the edges — I was saying to myself, “I
  should stop.  I need to take a break.”  My stubborn self
  wanted to get it done, so I didn’t stop until I couldn’t climb back up
  on the bed after one of my descents.

  Finally, I did stop for a break and bit by bit got the plants hung back
  on their hooks in the half of the window that I’d gotten sealed. 
  When Doug awoke yesterday afternoon, he moved a few plants away from
  the end I hadn’t done, taped down those edges, and replaced those
  plants.  This morning before he went to bed the two of us sealed
  the bathroom window and taped a square of poly sheet over the exhaust
  fan hole in the ceiling, the single worst heat leak in the whole place,
  except for the front door, which the cats can open, but which they
  never bother to completely close.  Thanks be to gravity and an
  off-plumb trailer that the door does swing back into contact with the
  frame after they pass through. 

  I was so cold in here yesterday that for a few hours I stretched bungee
  cords across the door and restricted feline access.  The bungees
  are still hanging there from the time a couple of winters back when I
  thought it would be prudent to have some way to deter or at least
  discourage a bear from just leaning on the door, swinging it open, and
  walking in.  That was right after Doug shot the moose, when there
  was still blood and guts on the snow in the yard, and I was wary of
  bears.  How the door came to be not only unlockable, but without
  even a functioning latch, is one I’ve told before, but I neglected to
  record the link to that story.

  

  • 3:53 pm
  • 4 Comments