>>TELLING THE STORY>>!!>
>> What do you think the “origin” of struggle is?...............
>>> Struggle began with the first atom that made the colossal mistake of becoming self-aware (Cioran). The struggle began when 1 person built a FENCE and declared a piece of the world “MINE”>When greed, ownership of land, desire to penetrate people and minds for power.
>>> The transition from being connected to the earth and its resources for they are not infinite but intertwined and must be respected— to the abrasive shift toward ownership and power.
/>when the desire of war and money and dominance began– it has only continued on. Just like opium– at first you consume it then it eats you alive. This greed and this lifestyle eats them alive.
>>>We all want things. And we believe in the thing called mutual exclusion that seems to arise from us all wanting things, all the time, in the same places.
>>> Uhhh originated in the cosmic accident of consciousness itself, a bug in the universe that has CURSED living things with the awareness of their own futility and desires (My grandma probably sometime).
>>>>I think the origin of struggle is death, the first realization of mortality. I think maybe everything comes from avoiding this trying to cope with this, trying to cheat it, or beat, or “win” at living to make the dying worth it. To put value to life because death seems so random. Once life has value it can be exchanged? Sold? Realizing you can’t get what you want
>>We’re very disturbed by our own smallness and the finitude of our time on Earth.
>>How do you feel these core issues manifest in our world today?
>>Suffering, collective amnesia, division, the desire to only protect “our own” as if we own ourselves in the same way we must “own” property and assets in order to reap the benefits of them. Inalienable rights have become privileges, and we are only able to exist in categories that are explicitly defined. We kill each other to evade our own death and take pills and drink alcohol to avoid being haunted by those ghosts. We spend life being selfish because thinking about our role in harm, and the scale of that harm, might eat us whole. So being selfish becomes a form of self-preservation. We eat so we are not eaten.
>>>It manifests through CULTURE WARS, not probiotics--kombucha, sauerkraut, but districations…. LOUD. loud DISTRACTIONS from the quiet, ongoing realities of economic exploitation.
>>>We are dying to feel certain. Everything around us seems so complicated, so gray, so big and corporate and morally ambiguous. We grasp at anything that makes us feel we have a place to stand that’s our own. Flags do the trick, and fences, big fucking fences that cross continents. Inside this chalk circle, we believe… and so on. At least we know where the lines are, in those cases. But yeah, it’s one big loud distraction.
>>How can we learn to respect all suffering? How can we acknowledge the different levels of suffering?.................
>>The world’s not zero sum. I think we often feel that other people’s pain, or recognition of it, directly detracts from recognition of ours. And vice versa – we feel we should minimize our own suffering in light of others.
>>There are the levels of suffering for an individual and there's the larger levels of suffering for a whole group of people who were collectively suffering for long periods of time under specific regimes that were built to bring wealth and power to certain people. To acknowledge the different levels of suffering comes acknowledging the deeper complex histories that interweave all our lives together, to see the generational trauma’s that come with war and famine– how could this be? What allowed for this suffering? Who enabled it? It is to see that things are complex and that there is a respect for these histories that need to be called to for such drastic struggles.
>>>I think part of acknowledging the different levels of suffering is adopting a giving mindset, giving what we can when we can, because we never know when we will need that reciprocity in return. Thinking about the future as something we can actively shape by the way we care about eachother now, the things we make, the actions we take, as a continuum of community-care and recognition. I think we also must respect our own suffering in order to respect other people’s– and then happens through being listened to and having a government that acknowledges intergenerational sources of trauma and its repercussions on present day experience i.e mental health crisis, general reduced upward mobility. I think if our suffering actually had an end in sight we’d be a lot better at understanding it, processing what it means, and addressing the sources of it in the world around us. We’ve all sort of lost our own feeling, so how are we supposed to know how to address each other?
>>>YOU CANT FUCKING AVOID YOUR WAY INTO A LIFE YOU LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! hehe
{PRINCIPLES}
>>What is your personal “golden rule?”..........................
>> Uncertainty. I can always be certain that I am not completely sure of anything, this is the one thing I know to be true, my “ultimate truth.” I think maybe moving through the world in this way can pose some advantages. If I can trust that I don’t know what I’m doing, I can trust that others also probably don’t know what they’re doing, and it allows me to give people some leniency and possibly more patience?
>> My money, my effort, and my time are all the power I truly have. How I spend those things (or my choice not to) are a reflection of my values, morals, and priorities.
>>>Care. Taking care of myself. Taking care of others. Listening and seeing everyone. Not just people like me or people I’m attracted to or people with social capital.
>>Listen, and be present– and dont assume. Sometimes you don't need to speak to understand, sometimes theres some things that people haven't aknowledged themselves that eventually you can understand by listening and watching how they act. This comes hand in hand with mutual respect, though to be honest i really struggle to uphold myself to this golden rule these days because i cant help but blame innocent people for being okay with the way the world is today… its hard. But first step is to listen and be present and dont assume.
>>Desciption of image: a bullet point list of rules that aren’t so golden but rust with on the metal bat that I love to be hit by.
>>What are things that bring us together rather than tear us apart? What creates belonging? ................................
>> I think that many things have the power to bring people together, but I believe that pain and suffering are more often than not bring some sense of belonging. I think because especially traumatic events involve all the senses, anxiety, fear and extreme emotions, we remember them more clearly, they have a large impact on our psyche and development, often making us into who we are. To be able to relate to someone on the basis of experiencing the same kind of pain or trauma, means to recognize them as a fundamental part of yourself. I think bringing people together under one common mission is much more difficult than bringing people together under the basis that we’ve suffered the same. Maybe the desire to end that suffering is something that can bring us together, but the logistics of how or what that suffering is needs to be agreed upon.
>>Movies, collectively feeling something, music, dancing, being in a room together
>> Something i think that can bring us together is the use of visual anthropology/ethnogrpahic film, a truthful story – or even fiction these things without our world’s predispositions rile up our inner hearts and make us feel that we are all deserving of life. Anything that shows our shared humanity on the screen, not just the suffering but the beauty of living
>> A common enemy
>>Good food. Or sustenance that isn’t food, like warmth, care.
>>> Love! Platonic/Romantic/Conceptual/Political
>> Utopias
>> Stories that give us worlds
>>What is a principle or mission that you think everyone can get behind? .......................................................
>> The idea of “me first.” I think we need to get people to understand that the well being of “me” is dependent on the well being of everyone else. I think this might be an easier mission than getting rid of the “me.” I think that not everyone, but most may be able to get behind the idea that they themselves will always come first, while I don’t agree with it, I think it would be important to remind people that they can not exist and thrive alone. In addition to this, no one can become rich alone, this realization may give people more confidence and reliability in the collective while recognizing their own individual power, power to be secure in themselves and confidence in their power to overthrow their oppressors
>>What would fulfill you?.......................................
>>I don’t know that I actually know what fulfillment would look like in the present time. I guess it would begin with the end of preventable tragedy and suffering. I think about my utopia and it wouldn’t be without suffering. I don’t think that’s possible, but it would look like an actual effort from all parties to prevent it. Mutual care and confidence that others want the same. Fulfillment would look smaller, there would be no excess, there would just be enough. I think all anyone really ever wants is enough, what that looks like for different people I don’t know.
>>> I do think part of the human condition is being a little insatiable but I also think we have become hard to please because we’ve been told so many times what we’re supposed to be pleased by. I think we’d like to be complex. Maybe complexity that is familiar.
>>Actually I think acceptance. I think being accepted and accepting would fulfill me.
>>Doing something creative or doing something for others. I tend to believe those are the only two things that can fulfill anyone, but who knows. ANd then of course that good little neoliberal in me wants to make a splash, create something big, save a whole lot of people.
>>How can we include everyone in the future?...................
>> I think it’s important to recognize that there’s no we including a them. It’s their future as much as it’s ours. We have to necessarily build it together.
>>> Interdependence. Knowing our own insignificance and how much we have both to teach and learn from each other.
>>How can we face people with different beliefs/ realities / conceptualizations?.........................................
>>Maybe, as difficult as it is, we have to approach every person with the humility to believe that they might well be right. If we can’t approach people on even ground, whatever their beliefs may be, I think they’d react as any person would – with anger or defiance at feeling patronized, belittled, and demonized. Most people think they are good people, and most people think that when it comes to fundamental values – sharing, doing no harm – they are on good footing (or doing their best to be).
{MISSION}
>> What are the ways we can communicate our shared values to the people?........................................................
>> Tell stories! Stories other people wrote. Movies they made. Also, make movies and write stories.
>>How can we capture the hearts of people, make them feel something, connect with each other?.......................
>>Make them and their experience feel important. How do we write a story where everyone who reads it is a character/is included in the narrative? We need to create models for our own interdependence because the only ones we have are economic. We could write an economic story.
>>(The role of Tik tok in our generation)?......................
>> Having a collective interface for global communication allowing for translation for cohesive understanding and individual documentarians of what they are seeing from their home/standpoint.
>>(The collective Fear of being unemployed in our generation)......
>>> I think this fear is interesting because it taps into a lot of anxieties about worthiness, proving that you are valuable, existential anxieties about our life purpose.
>> Be open to the possibility of being wrong
>? >> This is so damn hard. All of this is hard, though it sounds easy when you say it. Frameshift: we’re all learning.
>> Recognize suffering→ What does that mean? How do you address that?..........................................................
> meditation
>> Attention as antidote to suffering – yet our attention has been commodified and has become meaningless. How do we reclaim attention?
>> How do you cope? How should we cope?........................
>> Cope 32,821 of the day:
The leaves are changing
From emerald to gold and I’m changing for the better!
I’m changing for the better!
I’m changing for the better!
I’m changing for the better!
I’m changing for the better!
I’m changing for the better! I have to believe
that I will.
>> Everything is an opportunity to learn, and that’s all.
>>https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/geshe-langri-thangpa/eight-verses-training-mind
