First there were storms, and with them came cyclones. Then the sky cleared, and there were earthquakes. Then the skies turned to grey and we could see in the distance a wall of water, a wave higher than mountains. It was miles offshore and seemed frozen in time, but it was moving faster than anyone could imagine. It was inevitability incarnate. It would drown the world of men.
Some people fought, some people fucked. Some took their lives, some fled the coast though they knew it was futile. The wave was the end, and we could literally see the end approaching. We were forced to come to terms with our mortality and the destruction of everything we knew. Most broke down, went mad. Their world was material, their self was distinct. Loss of both was incomprehensible. Only the sages were at peace.
What will survive the end of the world? What will remain true when men are gone? These are the things we should put stock in. A philosophy that holds good only for the living will do no good when we are dead.
Paul Winter – And the Earth Spins || 1990/Earth: Voices of a Planet
Your lovers will infuse your life with Éros, with Kāma, passionate love. Éros is an ocean; there is no taming it. When you first set out into its depths it will overtake you, toss you on its waves like a toy. As you grow older you will come to know its currents, how to read its skies, how to sail its storms. Through Kāma you will learn of ecstasy and despair, beauty and sadness. It is a descending love. It will drench your memory with peaks and crashes of emotion. But the ocean will never be still. Éros is not steadfast, for it knows neither bond nor loyalty. Your lover will leave you, always, as you will leave your lover, always.
Your brothers and sisters, your friends, your comrades’ love is Mettā, Philia, the love of family. By blood or bond, their love will remain where Éros flees. It will ground your life in the lives of others; through it you will learn of trust, of loyalty and honor. Philia is a chain, and it will hold you up where you would fall as it will hold you still where you would run. It seeks neither to descend nor ascend, but to remain. In time, Éros succumbs to Philia; lovers become friends, friends become family. It is strong, but still conditional: your friends, your family will follow you as you follow them, always but only if.
Love of self must be Areté, not the thin vanity of Narzissismus but a love that seeks always to move forward. Through life we must seek to better ourselves; to nourish and strengthen our bodies through action, to nourish and strengthen our mind through experience. Through Areté we learn of truth, of power, of virtue and of life. Your self will never leave you. It is unconditional so long as you remain. When you reach the end of your days, your self, your love will be your sole possession; Philia beneath you, Éros a distant memory.
Your mission is all of these things; it encompasses them and transcends. It is not love of passion, or friendship, or power, or wisdom. It is Agape, Bhakti, Prema, Ishq; a love born not of self but of selflessness. It is the love of God. It is the love of life. It seeks not to move forward, but rather to move upward. Through it you will learn of death, and of purpose. When your self is gone your mission will remain, for it exists beyond the self, beyond the scope of a single person. It will remain for other selves to further, and when they pass it will remain still. For there is only one mission in life, and we all, ultimately, fulfill it.
In life we sacrifice that which is lesser for that which is greater; that which is fleeting for that which remains. Therefore put your friends before your lovers, your self before your friends, and your mission before your self.
Keep the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who claim to have found it.
-Václav Havel
And Ken Wilbur claims to have found a way to seek the truth, for which I consider “A Brief History of Everything” a truly inspirational work of philosophical synthesis. The book isn’t perfect, but the material as a whole is undeniably transformative. I discovered the book in my early teens while working at a library, and though I only read the first few chapters it was the book that induced me to develop a strong spirituality. After finishing the book in my early twenties, I left not with “the answer,” but with a clearer path to seek it; not a giddy exuberance or steadfast zeal, but a sober, contemplative, and balanced perspective of my place in the world, and its place in myself.
When they separate the mind from the body and thus gain immortality, they will look back on all of those who came before them with a new-found respect. These people had to die. They’re gone forever.
And yet death is a gift: for if we’d had eternal life, would we have tried so hard to create something worth remembering?
A day will come when death becomes a choice rather than an inevitability. That day will owe its existence to every one of us who lived with death in our lives.
Jay Electronica – Eternal Sunshine || 2008/Act 1: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge)
A popular tenet of modern feminism has been that, throughout history, “women were smart and strong but men kept them down.” This statement is most often used in reference to the idea that men are the dominant sex within society – “women would be too, if men hadn’t kept us in the kitchen.” Yet in A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilbur raises a strikingly simple point – “If women were smart and strong, how did men keep them down?” (It’s beginning to look like we should put this sort of question to the “men’s rights” movement as well.) It’s a classic catch-22, with only two answer categories – “A”, because men are smarter and stronger, or “B”, because men didn’t keep them down. Not surprisingly many men chose A, but while the feminists have not, neither have they chosen B. That would imply that they willfully submitted to male dominance – also a contradiction of feminist ideals. To be a victim is to assume lack of power; to be otherwise is to assume responsibility.
This is only a problem insofar as we’re making it one. In reality, it was never about “dominance” or “submission,” it was about direct vs. indirect. Female power derives not from directness (physical/mental) but from indirectness (emotional/spiritual). If females “submitted” to males directly, then so did men submit to them indirectly. “B” wasn’t really a compromise; we just thought it was.
And yet the reason this problem arose in the first place is because we currently live with a highly male-centric worldview. Before I invite argument from the likes of MND and The Spearhead, I’ll reiterate – not a male-centric world, but a male-centric worldview. In the male worldview, we equate power with directness, indirectness with weakness. Hence the above problem – when we ignored the fact that the intangible, the true feminine mystique, is power as well, lack of male traits became equated with lack of power. From this mindset arose the ultimate irony of modern feminism, that in encouraging women to be more assertive, more dominant – more direct – they were, in other words, promoting male values!
This is the exact opposite of what feminism should be about (Girl Game knows this, though they might not have said it so directly). True feminism is the promotion of female values and strengths, the strengths that enveloped and bound the men who built cities. I’m reminded of something a friend once said – “Men were placed on earth to move the world forward; women were placed on earth to hold it together.” Vertical and horizontal – it’s powerfully simple, and sums up the point we seem to be missing of late – men and women are not equal, but are of equal value.
That is what today’s society needs to realize; this is the end of the “gender wars.” Like a scale tipping from one end to another, we can continually go back and forth on sex issues – or, we can balance the scale. Which do you want?
