Humans only change through crisis and tragedy.
And boy do humans need to change.
It is inconceivable but true that the current tragedy, as immense as it is, is NOT changing the politics of Climate and Energy. The only change it has really wrought politically is to answer the question: What will it take. Unfortunately the answer is…..nothing. Nothing, no event, no force, no reality can change the artificial world of politics in a crumbling empire. In a crumbling paradigm, in what is perhaps a crumbling civilization. At the very least, the model of civilization as we have known it is crumbling, as that model proves inadequate to deal with the change that is occurring.
A change which cannot be stopped by men because it is not of man. It is of the world, of the planet, of the universe.
Change, real change starts….somewhere else. On a plane of reality we cannot conceive of, things are changing….in fact things have already changed. Whatever that change is, whatever the eventual shape of that change will take, it has already occurred and is now working its way down to us down through the “fine” at first and into the “gross” layers of matter and consciousness. And of course one, if not the, grossest layers of awareness and consciousness is that of the politicians, especially the republican politicians, but only barely less gross is the consciousness of the democrats who inexplicably allow them to frame “reality” as we know it.
That change works its way down through the layers of consciousness, into awareness, into those who are unaware, and finally into John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. By the time they give Reid and Obama permission to act, it will already be too late.
Too late for what? Too late to matter.
From here on out “politics” will be years behind the curve of actions needed to mitigate the series of tragedies that will unfold to change human consciousness.
“Politics” (as we know it) has become irrelevant.
Political change had it’s chance and it was strangled to death by those protecting the status quo. A status quo that will now, having not changed “on time,” crumble. The structures will continue to exist, but they too have become irrelevant, and new structures will rise up to replace them as the new reality emerges.
The change now will arrive first in the social consciousness of the world’s people. And those people will create the new structures needed to deal with the new events and realities. Realities revealed …in part… by tragedy. The rigid, “gross” structures that currently exist have no chance of adapting quickly enough to the new reality that is emerging. Their response to the rapid fire flow of events will be as inadequate as the response to the ocean of oil replacing the waters of the gulf. Events will now rapidly occur that will necessarily spur a new way of reacting, a new form of response.
These events and these new forms of reaction will be the forge of the new reality that humans must create to survive.
It is impossible to say what these events will be, what shape this new reality will take. To those of us accustomed to the instantness of the internet, even the accelerated change of these events will seem gradual. And that is a good thing, it will give us time to, if we pay attention, see and document and foster these changes, this emerging reality…..and perhaps even influence the shape of the new reality.
This is of course all merely my opinion. My take, my two cents, the result of the break I have been taking, sitting in a metaphorical cave and pondering the shape of the world as the outright evil of the Bush years has been replaced by the banality and mediocrity of the Obama years. I could of course be wrong. But, lol, these rapid changes have already manifested themselves here in the microcosm of DD. And my response to that and to the larger changes can of course only be dictated by what I perceive.
So that is the course I intend to take, documenting and trying to assist the new structures and responses necessary to deal with the emerging realities. Commenting on politics seems a bit futile, if perhaps still amusing. Attempting to make the current mediocrity less mediocre seems a waste of energy….trying to nail jello to a tree.
Just as we have no idea what the true shape of the new reality will be, we, or at least I, have no idea what form my response…my blogging…will take.
All I know is that the only response that will work is to adapt. To remain as open as possible to change, and to force even more opening to try to stay ahead of the curve, lol. To the extent that observing and documenting these new realities matters, that is what I will be doing. It might be fun! It certainly won’t be boring!
To quote the man whose blatant evil is as much “responsible” for these changes as any individual….merely by bestirring people to rise up and fight him …and thus become more aware and involved….
Bring it on!
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I will need all the help I can get, lol!
we all need all the help we can get and can GIVE.
And, not to take away from your message, the moran-in-chief actually said “Bring ’em on.”
that they are not all that and a bag of chips.
Politicians are treated by the punditry and by much of the rest of the blogosphere as if they’re, uh, kinda, demigods.
They’re not. They’re neither smarter, wiser, nor have better judgement than any American you might pick at random out of a bag of monkey droppings.
And yet the average American trusts them to wield these extraordinary powers? The powers of life and death, who gets to stay here and who doesn’t, who is deserving of civil rights and who isn’t? I’m sorry, but, while he may have been better than that crumbling soulless old fossil the moronic Republicans ran, Barack Obama is just not my saint nor my icon, he doesn’t play 11 dimensional chess and he’s not worthy of my undying affection and hagiography. No president is.
These people are people who can’t even keep it in their pants for two seconds. And their pundit enablers are jackals, gnawing on misery and hungry for more. And just about as intelligent as braying hyenas.
Everything you said is true. They’re not going to move fast enough to solve the really big problems. But they may move quickly enough to make us all wish we had never been born, because what they understand with a mutinous populace is repressive force.
The good answer for that is a healthy dose of contempt and impressed humility. They’re not all that bright, and they’re our servants.
To the degree our politicians can be made aware that they serve only at our sufferance, the better. And for that to happen, we have to cast off this ridiculous partisan tribalism.
that many people are seeing that there is no possible change short of chaos.
In my opinion, most humans will die, and I now believe that is just and completely necessary.
I agree, politics is now, at best, an macabre sidelight.
It is laughable that Obama can dream in the tiniest recesses of his self that he makes the least bit of positive difference to the immense change that is upon us.
Our civilization is already gone for all practical purposes. I am completely over believing that my country can be turned around, but what is equally as devastating is that I see the signs of a fundamental breakdown in the human contract virtually everywhere.
I disagree about the change being caused by a larger entity than man. The change upon us is virtually entirely of and by man. The change is the result of what we do materially and spiritually in this realm.
Without us, the planet would surely be vastly different.
However, the Gaia theory made sense to me thirty years ago and makes more sense to me now. You are right if you mean that Gaia is in charge of what is happening next. Gaia may want some of us, s/he sure can’t tolerate most of us.
What I see is that events will spiral into a lot of death. People will react in many predictable and also many unpredictable ways.
The people who survive will make a different culture, hopefully better, but there is no way of knowing. It might be completely dystopian. In reality, we are already inside a dystopia.
If it is not clear, I agree with most of what you have said here although I would shift the spectrum slightly.
I have shifted my allegiance from making a better world for people, something I have struggled to do for more than forty years of my adult life, to making a record for the people who might survive and might be worthwhile.
But if I had my druthers, I would just let humans die out and allow the cetacean and other beautiful species a dominant place on this tragically beautiful planet.
What is so hard right now is that I am in contact with quite a few people who feel the way we do, but they are spread out across the nation and globe. Just being with them would help me both physically in terms of surviving and emotionally in terms of coping with what we are witnessing. Unfortunately, that is just not my fate.
I don’t believe that humans only change through crisis and tragedy. But right now, humans refuse to change even in the face of crisis and tragedy.
Humans actually change in response to a lot of stuff. There are plenty of good challenges that come along in even an ordinary lifetime, and people respond by changing in incredible ways.
Humans change physically just by interacting with their pets (See Donna Haraway’s work on companion species, especially about DNA exchange). Humans change because we are curious, and we dig into things with our brains.
Humans change because they fall in love or because they don’t.
Humans change because they have insight and visions.
Most importantly, we have come to the end of a 500 year era of modernism during which a lot of horrible crap was circulated around the globe at warp speed.
We cannot see outside our modernistic reality systems. Even Buddhism is weak tea in the face of the overwhelming system we have been steeped inside. Sorry about that.
We (USA) have very little perspective on other cultures/other times because we are incredibly narcissistic. There is plenty of that to go around in other times/places, but older cultures who have been forced to rub against others have some wisdom in them.
The shamans of the Americas believe the fifth world is coming that that ‘white’ people and their technology have a role to play. That would be more comforting if they had not welcomed Europeans in the way they did at the beginning of modernism.
generations. Not much. We moderns, even with our fancy
tools, seem prone to the same patriarchal conflicts that our historical ancestors faced. But history is not all conflict. Some cultures did/have done quite well inside the great maldala. We have it within us. Just got to find it between us.
I agree with you . . . change is going to come from someplace other than politics . . . someplace deep within each of us . . . but growing and affecting more and more of us (hopefully) until we have a new reality.
Unfortunately, as you recognize, devastating events, likely caused by environmental degradation and climate change, will be the spurring events:
who is this buhdydharma guy and how’d he get so smart?! 😉 Nice to see ya, bro.
chaos into sense… I think I’ll know it when I see it. Or at least I hope I will.
reading this essay…
I have this tendency to see (look for) signs, symbolism, messsages,…. hints, clues, little taps on the shoulder from God (or whoever), in ways I can’t describe really, it’s not out of a book or anything. I just know ’em when I see ’em, sometimes. Sometimes I miss ’em too.
Last night at dusk, we had a little ‘event’ here in my neighborhood. Next door neighbor’s house, common fence. I was outside smokin and I heard the blue jays making some hellish noise, so when I went around front to see, I discovered The Louie’s out there…. no, its not my cat or any of the usual. No. Two, yes two, snakes, up on their roof.
When City Animal Control arrived, the guy told us they were… uhm…. not wild, not native to here, but in fact, they were both boa constrictors. Babies. About 5 ft long and the size of my wrist around.
Boa CONSTRICTORS ! ! !
I dont know how they got here, and he was NOT able to catch them either, they slithered away…
Guy told us…. they are not dangerous TO YOU, they are heat seeking, prey on rats squirrels etc, but dont worry they’re not venomous. The kill by the constricting, suffocate their prey. Not to worry.
😛
Ordinarily, I ‘get messages’ from, oh, herons, egrets, lizards, dragonflies, and so on, but man…. constrictors?!?!?!?
yeesh.
Good to see you back.
“Change is the only constant.”
except in the governing and ruling structures —
that can’t change fast enough,
to prevent their own obsolesce.
people will continue to adapt —
while parties and corporations will continue
to leech on to us, trying desperately to maintain
their power and relevance — and their charade.
Hopefully, People will leave them in the
dust pile of history — and invent something else,
that actually works, for a change.
if not — well
“Change is the only constant.”
interesting post buhdydharma
welcome back from the “metaphorical cave”
And great essay.
It’s hard to say what will come to pass, as you say, so I’m going to stick with the original inspiration for my blog handle for the foreseeable future, because we may still be a long ways from complete collapse (change happens in surprising ways, after all – remember Poland!) and from going over the edge. And maybe we (as a species or civilization) won’t recognize what’s happening if and when we do? Maybe some will, but I have a feeling most won’t…
…in buhdy’s essay and in the thoughtfulness of so many comments.
Yes. We have entered a new, radically different, unfamiliar terrain. Many will die. Hopefully, a few will find the way to survive, make it through, clear away the debris from this destructive and destroyed culture, and build the new.
I think it depends on rigorous honesty of awareness, steady equanimity, and the ability to tolerate great levels of pain without losing compassion. Just sayin’!
grow food locally. No? You’re screwed.
Will we become like Argentina or Greece. Soon.
Can western civilization still produce good pant zippers, let alone blowout preventers.
When you can’t stand neither Glenn Beck nor Chris Matthews is VanDerSlut the answer.
Once a hippie always a hippie. From draft card burning to nano-thermite report distributing non-conformist, now “terrorist” behaviors.
Neither left nor right am I, just a man whose country left for the funny farm.
it’s the antidote to hope. Hope is a fantasy, a desire a distraction, hope is fear. The Tibetans word for hope and fear are synonymous. We are unwilling to look beyond the insanity we’ve created We as humans seem stuck in a circle whose only purpose seems to be to defy cause and effect and even our own humanity and capability.. We have taken ourselves out of the context of life and for what? A hell on earth we have artificially created and proclaimed progress, reality and ‘good’.
The outcome if we manage to not fall seems to me to be worse then the chaos and change we are going through. I’m rooting for the whole damn nasty global Dream to topple of it’s own weight, it is not real it serves nothing not even those who think they have power and wealth. Burying our true nature in an oil slick and betting on the killers for our retirements, is so sick it sometimes makes me laugh. Sorry to be so negative/positive but on a sheer spectacle level the insanity of believing that humans cannot exist without chest thumping ‘leaders’ or funny money, cars, wars and hate and yet are willing to throw out the parts of our nature that is good and can dream. All for the hope that maybe they or their children will get rich and in turn burn the world while they zoom zoom zoom, burning dead dinosaurs whose existence they deny.
Glad your back. We need you. We need everyone of us that can see beyond the present illusion/delusion. One sweet dream.
My own work involves connecting the inner and outer worlds. Outer events reflect the deeper reality and can be even read as “signs” of something within our psyches.
Clearly we’ve suddenly come to some new place. The outer events and our politics are so messed up that there is no hope of political change unless the oligarchy itself intends to make those changes. At best we can apply pressure by not cooperating, by trying to petition the powerful, by building some alternative structures so that we can begin to form our own power centers. Even just recognizing the content of your diary is a great step. Inner and outer is one thing.
and let it rub off on a bunch of people.
It’s really the only chance we have and it’s certainly a lot less complicated than politics.
I buried a neighborhood cat named Lucky yesterday. He really needed that name and it served him well until it didn’t anymore. Lucky wouldn’t have needed that name if he wasn’t such a bad cat.
Be good. Die trying.
Easy Peasy.
Al Gore said that we are in the time of consequences. Another way of explaining this is that henceforth physics will determine our situation more than politics. CO2, spilled oil, and crop failures can’t be spun away by talking heads. Reality is about to drown out the mighty Wurlitzer, and a major attitude adjustment will result.
that the 21st Century Social Crisis will provoke a wide array of reactions, provide opportunities for the emergence of a vast number of alternative and resistance courses. Some may seem strange, even crazy; remember that not so long ago, when we saw a person walking down the street alone and talking out loud, we assumed that person was crazy. Now we assume they’re on a Bluetooth or some such device. The first time you saw someone talking on one of those, were you sure it wasn’t a lunatic?
The most important thing for those of us locked out of the failing system’s hegemonic structures is not to be fearful of the alternatives. Some will in fact be dangerous, and must be confronted and defeated, but even those it would be erroneous to fear. Remember, we’re not the ones trapped in a dogma of meaningless political language, false choices, the kabuki plays and three card monte games of the Powers That Be. We’re free of all that if we choose to be, and that should give us the self-confidence to be able to distinguish and defeat the false and dangerous responses to the Social Crisis.
The reason fear will destroy us is that fear is the only thing that can keep us from embracing the options that do meet our needs, do address the causes as well as the symptoms of the social crisis, do give us a path out from the general system failure. Not only do we need those options, those options need us. Be sure that the images of fear and rejection of our ways out will be heavily brandished against us. Hegemony will pound its messages of fear and alienation into the public mind, and when some members of the public parrot back what they’ve been told, their parroting will be reported as “news”, as “public opinion”. Remember that the vast majority have already been marginalized, there’s no reason to fear being put in a category we already inhabit. If by our choices, by our development of alternative courses and structures, we can make our “margins” more weighty than the Power Centrism of hegemony, by simply carrying on our tasks confidently and sustainedly we can hasten the crumbling to dust of Power Centrism.
but i can’t. i’m too tired after reading endless comments about ROVs and reading through all of the comments in phoenix woman’s diary on the mavi maramara footage last night trying to find the commentator who translated the norwegian to see if s/he would be willing to translate the norwegian statutes requiring a relief well/kill bore be drilled when a new well is drilled. no luck and my eyes and head hurt. but i am so pleased to see you writing again. i’ve missed you, buhdy, we all have.