We live in groups that we have formed, to cope with the demands of nature, of scarcity, of harsh environmental conditions on this planet.
And succeeding in groups, we have developed technologies when we had leisure, technologies that now seem to have encouraged, developed, or even created, new environmental conditions that actually seem to threaten to extinguish human life on this planet.
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A supranormal condition?by Carl Pwccaman, Unknown News
Dec. 24, 2003
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We live in a world where people, having done no serious harm to others, are put into 'correctional' systems to be bullied and beaten, if not raped and killed. For some reason, our 'reformatory' institutions fail to separate physically brutal people from others who are comparatively reasonable. People who are mentally ill, retarded, or in other ways vulnerable to abuse, are not separated or in any way protected from those who would exploit them. The pressures of survival in an insane world extract a heavy price. Not that life outside the 'justice' system is sane, because it isn't either...
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We live in a world where our bodies send hormones raging through our bloodstream, filling us with reaction, panic, terror, and rage. Our brains send us assumptions, presumptions, illusions, delusions, and fantasies of dominance, control, and attainment of any of our whims regardless of how it effects other people. As children, we cannot choose parents who know how to raise us, we cannot choose adults who will nurture us, we cannot choose adults who will protect us, we are at the mercy of biology and 'culture' that puts far too much in the hands of the adult custodians around us. Among other children, the violent ones, the ones who humiliate, might even be excused...
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We live in a world where the demands of mere physical survival are idolized, even by religions that claim higher values. Cultural norms are equated with actual survival through abstraction, regardless of the reality, and the weight of all sort of taboos threaten to exclude us from human companionship, relegate us to the margins as misfits, destroy relationships with friends and family, interfere with our ability to provide for ourselves, threaten our ability to survive, all for illusions, many of which don't even have anything to do with the preservation of society, much less actually improving the quality of life within society. Every month a transsexual is murdered on the streets of America, one of the most 'religious' countries, and also one of the most diverse countries in terms of religion as well as race, ethnicity, and lifestyle, one that has 'hate crime' laws and legislation against discrimination or targeting marginalized people for harm... but men who see fit to dress as women, who might see themselves as women trapped in male bodies, are not seen as worthy of such protections, or any human consideration.
We live in a society where the vocal spokespeople of the once privileged religion, complain about 'persecution' when they are merely taken off the pedestal and subject to the inconsistencies of human all-too-human attempts to apply principles of freedom from religion, that also work against the members of other religions, who face on the whole far more serious negative consequences when the inconsistencies are added up. Those who cry 'persecution' for not being able to indoctrinate other's children in a public classroom, or for being opposed in attempts to have their church charities funded by the tax dollars of people who are not members of their church, do not seem to know or care about the deaths of transsexuals, murders committed by people who are inflamed by their own preachers' ghastly demagogy against a conspiracy theory involving the so-called homosexual agenda. Such preachers and their church members never really stop to think that homosexuals and transgendered people typically have heterosexual parents in the first place, and have no cause to desire to destroy heterosexual marriage, but simply dream of fair treatment and perhaps of the chance to right some of the wrongs. Such religionists never stop for long to think that there are religious people with compassion that sincerely mourn injustices against homosexuals and transsexuals, who live with grief the rest of their lives, grief caused by unjust and obscenely cruel behavior of bigots who are inflamed by religious vitriol, out of genuine sense of spirituality.
We live in a body with a brain that creates conditions that make it very hard for us to remember to consider others, or to consider phenomenon outside of ourselves and some of our own experience. Our brain often helps us to cope with severe confusion in childhood, by hardwiring perspectives and reactions that create problems when we become adults. Our brain blots out the most severe and traumatic memories, literally making scars that require a re-wiring to cope with the physical damage, and another re-wiring to piece together the puzzling aftereffects and to heal to cope later in life when the old pathways prove problematic. Our brain easily filters out information that does not fit our 'framework' and preconceived ideas. Our mind easily abstracts, but has a more difficult time making sure to relate abstractions to experienced reality, leaving us with a tendency to talk out of our asses when we deal with something beyond our understanding or involving someone else's experienced reality. Our mind easily creates delusions, on a personal as well as a societal level, so that we do not see how we have filtered out reality to such an extent that we have become disconnected and irrelevant to the facts and actual processes that occur, or to the huge impact they have on other people, or could have for ourselves.
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We live in groups that we have formed, to cope with the demands of nature, of scarcity, of harsh environmental conditions on this planet. And succeeding in groups, we have developed technologies when we had leisure, technologies that now seem to have encouraged, developed, or even created, new environmental conditions that actually seem to threaten to extinguish human life on this planet. Our groups, when small enough, seemed to be manageable enough, and when large enough, seemed effective and flexible enough. Our dominant decision makers and fighters, when held accountable, in small enough or large enough groups, seemed to expand our potential. When we were able to reach out to our closer allies and to stay away from contact with those who were less well known and unpredictable, things sometimes seemed to have a balance. Yet there have also been wars of acquisition, wars of conquest, wars of impractical vengeance, wars where innocent people pay the price, colonial power-grabs, world wars, holocausts.
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We have regularly had to struggle, here, against corruption, cliques taking advantage, humiliation of those who were different enough to be feared or serve as a distraction, or as an outlet for violence. Frustrated at the death of someone close, at the sickness of a child, at headaches and itches, boils and spoiled food, at nightmares and images in the periphery, at natural disasters, at unexpected conflict with a passing group, at difficulty dealing with threatening animals or poisonous plants, the rage built up and some scapegoat died for it. Or some irrelevant taboo was established. Or some sacrifice.
Having done the best we could imagine, having imagined the worst we could contrive, struggling with our limits and our potential, we've created blind spots and problems, and also removed blind spots and solved problems. Yet we cannot manage with too much power, too much excess or privilege beyond others, with too much abstraction, with too much survival-centeredness, with too much self-avoidance, with too much self-centeredness. We cannot even imagine the excesses properly.
It may be true that the absolutely worst, most radically insane, unnecessarily cruel and destructive, willfully ignorant, and brutal realities, come from humans and human cultures. It may be true that our solutions, our systems, our cultures and religions, have embodied, excused, encouraged the most outrage, and created new and previously inconceivable outrages.
It may be true that it is humanity that conceives or creates good and evil in this world. And yet there is something radically wrong, radically sadistic, that you can see if you look clearly at what really is, here, in this universe, on this planet, in our human societies, in our personal experiences. And even if it is only humanity that conceives it, here, whence comes this distinction for humanity? Where does that capacity, that ability, that innate valuation come from?
It is said by 'humanists' that humanity creates good and evil, but particularly that humanity creates evil. How is that humanism? I fail to see how it elevates or encourages the best in humanity. No human acts in complete knowledge and with complete insight or without serious obstacles. No human has complete control over any institution. No human created a whole culture. No human created the human brain. No human created the natural world with its demands for survival... what human, except a sadist or a horror writer, would have imagined such an existence, or had the perversity to seriously claim it to be the 'best of all possible worlds' and then to put out a blueprint to realize such a vision, or to modify something wholesome and good to turn it into... this!? And what human thrives and develops to their potential, if they deny a proper negative valuation of that which is radically wrong, which is radically perverse, that consists of radically meaningless suffering and turmoil, or does not uphold such negative valuation as a reality, beyond mere humanity, with causes beyond simply humanity?
It is said by 'idealists' of the naïve or simplistic kind that all experience here is an illusion. How is that ideal? I fail to see how actual ideals are discovered, encouraged to be acted upon, or blossom in great moments of integrity, or that such ideals would have enough of the importance they deserve, in illusion. I see how some limited ideals can be found and acted upon despite illusion, with a selfless detachment that counteracts the stupidity of egotism or the interests of mere survival, but I just don't see the full flowering. But of course, 'idealism' is named for the perfect image in the mind, as the ultimate form or reality, as if that necessitates the obliteration of consideration of this world as having a serious effect and impact worth consideration. Labels aside, cutting through actual illusions is only valuable in reaching a clearer appreciation of the actual relationships and conditions that are experienced.
It is said by 'optimists' that no goodness receives harm, bad things, or evil in return, but is rewarded in due time, and that injustice is nonexistent because injustice is ultimately resolved justly. How is that optimal? I fail to see how any wrong that happens to a rapist erases a rape that never should have existed. I fail to see how receiving some good thing makes healing a reality, and even the good of healing does not make the existence of severe and torturous harm acceptable. I fail to see how it optimizes the inner experience of someone dealing with the most hideous travesties of injustice and cruelty that the universe, this material world, our cultures, and human beings can inflict upon people who must deal with very sub-optimal, abysmal realities, that never actually become optimal in any real way here.
It is said by 'religionists' that humanity is responsible for the world being in this state, the nature of the human condition being this way, either personally, collectively, or initially. I fail to see how that is religious. I fail to see how there is any experience of true religion, of the sacred, or honor towards of anything worthy of honor, through beliefs that blame humanity, some ancient ancestor, or oneself, for the created world's hideous qualities. It seems to detract from any religion, tribal or modern, 'Pagan', 'New Age', 'Christian', or otherwise, and it seems to ignore the possibility that the Sacred just isn't responsible or able to make this the 'best of all worlds' on its own, yet people are trapped here through a mistake or injustice, rather than themselves responsible in principle for everything hideous they encounter, as if original sin or human co-creation make any sense in dealing with 'radical evil'. I fail to see how positing an Evil or Ignorant being as responsible, needs to be combined with acceptance of our plight here as just or natural, or that we are by default doomed to be forever in the realm of that Evil or Ignorant reality despite our ability to desire more, to see in our hearts and minds something better, that ability in our conscience to condemn radical evil and to work against radical ignorance. I fail to see how humanity should be believed to have made our brains so limited they way they are, with physical and psychological processes hindering the accurate perception of relationships, empathy, and even sincere efforts to find a just and workable solution to mistakes and potential problems, I fail to see how humanity shaped the nature of life to require destruction at its core, or steered processes in the world to foster competition and survival struggles as the norm among animals plants and humans, or made the destruction of bacteria a requirement for healing, etc., etc., as if that answers the problems of our experience, here, as if that made any approach to the sacred more likely.
It is said by 'cynics' and 'realists' that humanity has always been warlike, always been greedy, always been limited, always had false ideas, and therefore there is no point in getting all in a huff over it. I fail to see how this is cynical or real enough to really cut through our cultural nonsense or to really accept the reality of our judgments, the fact of our displeasure with the way things are. Cynics were said to prefer the way of life of animals (like dogs, hence their name), or barbarians, and the first Cynic philosopher, Antisthenes, was only half-citizen, his mother apparently a slave. He knew what it meant to be marginalized, and therefore it is understandable that he didn't accept the 'norms' of society as natural, as inevitable, or as beneficial to himself or to all people, etc. Diogenes, one of the Cynics, is said to have lived in a bath tub, as a protest. They certainly spoke out negatively, regarding the supposedly wonderful Greek/Hellenic culture, took a stance against the norms, the accepted 'reality', the propaganda of the day. So-called realists, can indeed take a very restricted view of reality, limited only to what is currently known and expected as ordinary. But some realists see ordinary reality as perceived by culture as biased towards the constraints of a culture that can be modified, if you want to go against the status quo. Other realists go further and claim that the issue is what is grounded in experience and practical application, rather than what only seems to be difficult or outside our norms of current achievement... how else could we invent anything, either socially or technologically? Philosophically, realism has to do with whether universals exist at all independently of minds or particular things, but in terms of philosophy of knowledge, it refers to the position that particular things exist independent of our perception. A 'cynic' or 'realist' who only succeeds in being a radical subjectivist skeptic, tends to erode the capacity to really engage in substantial critique of a society or the status quo, especially if the critique is supposed to be through an appeal to some perspective that has merit. These folkes also tend to undermine the attempt to uphold any standard as an actual norm, because their basic position is one of mere destruction, deconstruction, erosion, and criticism for the sake of criticism. The result is pessimism as the highest standard, regardless of the fact that this reinforces a really undesirable status quo, and regardless of the fact that such a default standard of pessimism has no basis in objective reality. After all, clearly understanding reality or making a real judgment, is not the object of the so-called 'cynic' and 'realist' who is actually just a pessimist and jaded spoiler of attempts to achieve something better. Their perspective can undermine human potential by limiting humanity's vision of itself to what it currently conceives of as real, necessary, inevitable, as part of its unquestioned, unchallenged, and unexamined nature, or as part of its tacitly and uncritically accepted limits.
It is said by 'skeptics' that there is nothing more, that what is unprovable is useless or harmful. I fail to see how that is skeptical enough of the concept of proof, evaluation of use, or the assumption of harm, if we are to be real skeptics. If there is nothing more, it seems no harm can be done so long as I do not operate out of unnecessary fear, anger, spite, and self-centeredness, or if I avoid obsessive devotion or the sort of extreme loyalty that negatively effects others. If we cannot really prove anything, it should not matter if I indulge in fantasy, or even delusion, since it is unclear by what standard to judge such things anyhow. It is unclear how to determine usefulness, or whether that is a standard that is worthwhile, and it is unclear what sort of harm is most feared by such skeptics. Sometimes it is a Utopian Horror, a legitimate concern based in past programs and huge systems to control every aspect of life in a society, a vision of total social engineering under a false science, basically under the presumption that some science, philosophy, or vision deserves to be implemented totalisticly and coercively. Sometimes it is a concern about survival, not often enough is the quality of human experience considered when a skeptic is concerned about survival issues. Why not risk death for a better life, provided one doesn't make life unlivable for oneself or others? Sometimes a skeptic doubts the level of enjoyment they will be able to indulge, if things change. Yet they do not seem to be able to show how a skeptic should trust such indulgences, privileges, and other advantages of the status quo, or why anyone should trust the often excessive gambles that life in our cultural/economic systems and cultures require to have a chance at success. Why not be skeptical of the status quo or the claims that we must inevitably have wars of expansion, rampant acquisition, torture, totalitarianism, rampant greed, rampant corruption, rule by the wealthy, rule through raw power, excessive accumulation contrasted with extreme poverty, etc? Why not be skeptical of the claims that we cannot reduce instances of at least some these human all-too-human evils, to a significant enough degree, for a significant enough period of time, for it to be a worthwhile effort?
It is said by 'existentialists' that there is no meaning but the meaning we ourselves create, and that we are in a crisis of meaninglessness in a world that is absurd. I fail to see how this is existential enough. I fail to see how the experience of the existence of the desire for meaning, the judgment of this world's inadequacies and abysmal failures, travesties, absurdity, and horrors, is adequately accounted for. I fail to see how there is an actual meaning in a meaning we create, and I fail to see how this would mean that there is nothing beyond what is merely human as we currently experience humanity, or that such created meanings and values are merely natural to this sort of universe that we experience, when throughout 99% of human history we have claimed the importance of deeply felt experience of something more inside or beyond us and this sort of existence. I fail to see how the impossibility of meaning in the human condition itself, in the nature of existence here, is meaningful enough to stop there. Indictment against the limitations of this universe, our cultures, our brains and bodies, against the unnecessary and inexplicable horrors that exist, and the absurd processes and incidents we observe and experience... a dismay that permeates to the core of our being, shattering us... proves our superiority to the ignorant processes of mere matter, to the setup of the processes and design of this universe as a whole... proves our transcendence beyond the inadequacies of our brains and bodies, that do not sufficiently enough equip us to achieve the full promise of the solutions we imagine... solutions that are driven by our judgments and values, that are truly our own possessions, or even our own creations... these things indicate the transcendence of our core selves. What else, aside from life, particularly conscious life, in this universe, does these things? Life and Consciousness have certain aspects within them that transcend the ways of the meaningless universe, and burst through as something different, even as the ways of the universe inhibit, obstruct, pervert, and distract the directives of Life and Consciousness. The fact of mammalian care for the young, the gentleness and playfulness of animals that we relate to as pets, the comparative sanity of their interactions compared to the problems and extreme horrors created by human systems, indicates that they too transcend, at their core, and that we are somehow blinded, obstructed, limited, that our true nature is masked here, and distorted, by realities beyond our creation. And so when we determine our character, mocking the fate determined by mute and senseless facts and processes of existence, here, when we defy fate with our attitude, and judge this world set-up as lacking, we put ourselves, with the rest of sentient and caring beings here, above and beyond the limitations and realities of our material, instinctual, and psychological existence. We value, and animals nurture. Neither we nor the animals created this reality. We embody the best of manifest reality, here, at our greatest moments, and are bold enough to judge the cruelty of this universe -- these facts are a wonderful thing of which the forces that rule this universe itself are either not free or capable, or else the forces that rule are impotent to act differently in a way that would change things. But we do change, and we do value, and we do assert meanings and judgments, regardless. The vitality of our spirit matters, even if within the universe we find no meaning... we do find value, and we express value, and that points to a greatness beyond.
I say the reality of compassion of one creature towards any other creature, the judgment of any horror as meaningless, absurd, and hideous, the desire to understand, the spark of consciousness that seeks clarity of insight at any level, is evidence of something greater than the dumb senseless matter of skeptical physicists. I say the positive values that seem uniquely important to certain subjective human considerations of consciousness: compassion, peace, patience, humility, fairness, accurate understanding of relationships, joy, and such values that we think we see in other creatures or anywhere else in nature, are beyond any physical or mechanical processes of nature, indicate something inherently better, really valuable beyond mere instinct, abstraction, or principles of balance, symmetry, mathematics, or psychology. I say our judgment that life or conditions within our experience are absurd indicates transcendence, that our core essence is beyond our culture or even the universe. I say that life itself indicates something beyond lifeless matter and energy. I say consciousness indicates something beyond ignorant senseless materialism and behaviorism as well as something beyond the status quo of the 'Human Condition'.
We must become more truly human, or perhaps beyond human... taking things to a trans-personal level, otherwise we will never experience anything 'Supranormal' here. Any effort to bring some more compassion, some more accurate reflection upon situations and relationships that exist in our experience, will bring us some more sanity. Any effort to move beyond mere survival will take us beyond mere reaction and instinct that urges drastic anxious measures to control the uncontrollable within and without, in our environment, in other people, in countries. Any effort to consider our own generation up through several generations of descendents in the future, in terms of quality of life and potential to explore consciousness freely and fully, will help us to safeguard against some of the ridiculous possibilities and absurd norms of human history, especially recent history. Wisdom does matter. And Wisdom can matter, here.
We must consider something more than the ways of the universe, of dumb matter and energy, of mere processes, statistics, and apparent facts in matter, psyche, or society, or we will be limited to whatever our minds have been enshackled in, or extorted into believing as 'necessary.' We must also remember the awful realities, lest we fail to have checks and balances, forget to make contingency plans against human error, abuse of power, lack of accountability, or presumption of tyrannical domination by the masses, elites, or individuals.
In order for us to transform, we have to look at the realities, and so undo the mental bondage that accepts whatever happens to be, as the only reality.
The fact is, if you are shocked or angered, or depressed, at some of what I have said, it shows that YOU transcend the meaningless, not with objective meaning, but with value from the core of your being, that transcends the nature of the senseless, blind, ignorant, and cruel. It shows that YOU are MORE than this, and that your home is MORE than this universe. It shows that YOU might bring something MORE here, with you. And it shows that together, we might do something unthinkable otherwise, in the mere psyches of humanity. It shows that together, we might feel and do, something incomprehensibly beautiful, nurturing, and compassionate, that otherwise would not only be foreign, but nonexistent, here. It shows that together, we might bring out the best in other people, in ourselves, in animals, in plants, in things, in nature, that otherwise would have not only been submerged, but lost... lost here, at any rate. It shows that what our culture, what institutions, what symbol systems, what languages condition us to limit ourselves to, is not the final, ultimate, or only influence deep within us. It shows that we can transcend at least by our admirable qualities, whether we change things in a practical manner that manifests as positively as we would like it to be, whether we even achieve what is possible here, or whether we attempt the impossible and fail, or whether we die or are persecuted. It shows that we can say yes to our enduring spirit, regardless of what happens here, regardless of how our core self is judged, here, regardless of whether the core reality is fully realized. It shows that we can attempt to bring forth much desired-for wisdom, attempt to avoid the pitfalls, attempt to plan around the faults of humanity and the unpredictability of the universe, to be wise, and even to learn and grow, despite folly.
It shows that we can be a force for compassion, peace, humility, understanding, and wisdom, that otherwise would not have been here.
And if we remember to keep in mind that the conditions for success in this world are not always true to our spirit, are not always worthwhile, or even sane, then we might choose failure rather than to contribute to yet more horror. If we keep in mind that power is seductive, that picayune control over others is delusion, madness, egotistical fantasy doomed to usher in something undesirable to our core self, that spark that is beyond this state of existence. If we remember that power and control, here, tends to become corrupted, tends to be offered through tempting treats that poison experience here, then we might not be trapped in the bondage of the spirit of the authoritarian, the ruler, the authority.
Rulership, authority, obsessive control... these creep in to our institutions, our systems, our dreamed-up utopias, our projects, our interactions, our fantasies. But seeing it clearly, seeing it for what it is, in all its ugliness, all its unnecessariness, all its absurdity, can dissolve it. And over and over again, we can, at least in our own deepest self, transform. In a culture of awareness of manipulation, awareness of these awful tendencies and processes, and the reality of their ultimately unnecessary nature, as well as the reality of their tenacity and tendency to lie dormant as a constant factor to deal with, we might deal with our reality, our experience here in this universe, better. We might heal a little more, might prevent torture more, might intervene some more to prevent the development of bullying, might offer compassion more, to heal and assist in the transformation of others. We might end a war or two, might not start a war here or there, might slowly develop a little bit more sanity in a culture or subculture here or there, might prevent the forces that are against these things from succeeding quite so often. And our inner being would have a greater fullness, in the process, regardless of the results of such efforts.
We have that wonderfully precious thing that ultimately no one can take away, that no one can grant, that no one without it can really comprehend: integrity, spirit, a core self that has grown and seen more clearly. We need to hold these things dear, lest we forget them, take them for granted, underestimate their importance or impact, here, or lose them to foolishness, either willful or truly and innocently enough, ignorantly.
Whatever you believe that is beyond valueless existence, that you put in your character, defying meaningless absurdity... do not loose sight of the core reality that makes values real, the expression of a bit more clarity of understanding and insight, a bit more compassion, the creation of a bit more fairness, a bit more of a stand against injustice, a deeper knowledge of your true self, that is not bound to the limits and woeful inadequacies of this state of existence. Otherwise, this is all we have. And this reality is not good enough... it is far too unreal, far to ridiculous, far to horrific, far too unfair, far to cruel, far too humiliating, far to bound by greed, obsession, delusion, fear, confusion, mindless rage, and reaction.
There is more, or else you would not be reading this with any degree of sympathy. This is why I have the courage to feel, to live, to write, to heal. |
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Didn't you know?
The ground of existence imploded
Didn't you see?
I was raped
They were tortured
You were humiliated
We were bound
Weren't you there?
As souls were ripped from the fabric of a better time and place
As the rescue squads were sent
As balm and salve was applied
As this deadly existence died?
Can't you tell?
That something inside rises above, renouncing
Stopping, realizing,
Loving
Don't you feel?
The urge to show compassion
The desire for justice
And don't you seek
A bit of something more?
It is still there for you
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Peace,
—Carl Pwccaman
© 2003, by the author.
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