Monday, June 14, 2010

Gaping Chest Wound

I note with great interest our reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil crisis. How we see the "problem" and how we address it are very telling. We tend as a people to see big problems as what Douglas Adams called SEPs (Sombody Else's Problem) and with that comes a convenient blame that we can affix to the culprit, BP.
But more than that, we seem to be seeing the problem as a separate and distinct entity apart from ourselves. Like so many of our human ailments: cancer, depression, AIDS - you name it - we naievely believe that: a) it is not integrally interwoven into how we live our lives, and b) that there is or can be created a pill (a solution) that can make it go away, without any other effort on our part than simply swallowing it.
How foolish can we be? First of all, how foolish it is to think that poking holes in our body will not have some disasterous results at some point; that it somehow will not result in our bleeding to death. More importantly, how foolish it is to view the earth and a separate entity, an object here for our taking, and not the core and source of our very being as a spicies. In our dualisic logic, we have come to believe that what is not "this" must be "that," that what is not me is other and therefore could possibly be mine or at least used by me without any cost to me. We have failed the first great cosmic rule: that all is one and inseparable from itself. This truth, taught by every great sage that has grown out of this life form and moved about within its veins, is undeniable. We have forgotten that we are merely some six billion hairs growing on the surface of our collective body.
And how foolish can we be to think that this ailment we now face can be healed by placng a bandaid on the hole? We have a gaping chest wound that has punctured our lungs and heart and, with the blood gushing out at a million barrels a minute, we will think to stuff some gauze in it. We hope - in vain I fear - that there is a cure. Where is the Prozac to make this better? Isn't there some antibiotic to make it go away so we can get back to feeding our egos and consuming ourselves?
I am so sorry to be negative. I am so embarrassed to be part of that collective mind that believes this. I want to kick and punch my way out but I can't. I am a part of the whole. I, too, am bleeding to death. I will - like each of you - climb into my oil consuming automobile later this morning and drive off to work, and somehow pretend not to know that I/we are dying.
There is no pill.
There is no individual fault.
And there is no individual way for one person, one company or one country to make it better.
Our only hope is we and us, and to see that this blood spilling out is related to Darfur, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and all of the other 90 some wars and blood-letting ceremonies in which we are now engaged, as well as to the deforestation of the Amazon, the melting ice caps.
Oh people, join hands, wake up, help out. This is serious.