Burning Man
Not a smash and grab, but rather a find and keep.
Time is short, time is fleeting, time is burning, time is running out.
Do we squander it or do we burn through it like it burns through us? Does it pass while we whisper our small needs to it, or do we grab it and yell; demand a life of fire we know life is capable of being? Do we let our spirits be broken and become machines, or do we throw rationality and order to the wind and become something greater than a professional? Quit hiding behind indifference and feel the world’s edge.
Some would say, you can’t burn forever, you can’t outrun responsibility. I say you must never give up believing in impossibilities.
Accepting a calm rationality and an idle progression only kills us. Accepting the world as it is turns us into something less than our potential. Nobody rather spend their life in offices than inside the world itself. Nobody wants the world of schedules and deadlines, of stocks and commodities. It’s a sham on top of a sham. What we want is to be free, and most paradoxically, that’s what we run away from the quickest.
As Moses was leading the Israelites from slavery into freedom, they were surrounded by their ex-captors. Immediately, the Israelites cursed themselves for leaving their masters. They screamed life would have been better in their hands, because they would not be facing death right now, because they would have known what their life would have been.
And that in itself is a fundamental basis of willing enslavement. We decide we cannot stand the idea of an irrational world, where we don’t know what is next. So we cling to things which seem to give us stability. We look to them to provide us with a foundation, but in doing so we lose the one true connection, the one Moses was trying to teach the Israelites. The belief in humanity, and people, and God above all human cleverness. No human designed institution will ever provide a safe haven for the spirit. We must find it within the world and within ourselves. We must find it in a bond of trust between ourselves and the world. Never in our institutions, never in our masters, and never in the rule makers.
For the Israelites, slavery had become a kind of dull comfort, leaving accountability and blame to fall on others. You just picked a person, picked an idea, and onto it you could throw the blame for everything wrong within your life. In enslavement you gained someone else to blame, something concrete to boo and hiss, but you lost the most important part, that inner compass, that divine light that whispers to you in the middle of the night.
How can you hear the inner whisper now, with the phone ringing, with the web browser open, and with the tv on? You can’t hear it from inside an office, you can’t see it from inside a moving car. It speaks in the wind.
If all you hear is the highway, all you see is parking lots. The world spins and turns, but we must always guard our inner sanctity. We must tend our inner gardens the same as a royal garden. Your life depends upon it. All life depends upon it.
New politicians, slicker politicians make loud calls for emotion and change. Wolves in sheep’s clothing use the language of the people against themselves. Torture is fine, torture is security. Go back to sleep, here’s some photos of Michael Jackson instead.
And we do still have that moonwalk which is greater magic than any politician’s promises. The moonwalk is kind magic, anyone can do it. We can all be bright, we can all moonwalk and grab our crotches. We cannot, however, all learn how to live and deceive like a politician. And we must never let ourselves.
Let’s leave the world of politics to the politicians, and let’s keep the world of magic to ourselves. Let’s let them believe they are grasping to a true power, of forces of might and duty, of justice and sacrifice, and let’s leave the magic of the dance of the wind to ourselves. Let’s take pity on them, let’s make them believe. In their importance, in their personal justice. Let’s hide the world of magic from them, let’s keep them fat on facts and judgments. Nobody needs our love more than our politicians.
Let’s pretend they have tricked us, outsmarted us at the oldest game alive. We are completely subdued, we are completely dull and incapable. Only they have the power and intelligence to save us. There is no wind and no magic. Only economists and politicians.
