Renewal

Preserving the New

I've taken to surfing … on the web pages of Chile these past few days. It happened quite naturally … on the impulse of a poem I read here in WC. It gave the impression of a place far away from all else … in which the poet was pursuing ideas … at the very foundation of society and individual experience. Its a lovely place … and gives the impression of being on holiday … but the excesses of individualism … applied with state sanctioned willfulness … has left behind its marks … and makes for a social mural … that's a legacy of the forces of turbulence.

It reminds me of forest fires … caused by storms … that burns down everything … and then … gradually … sprouts again from its own ashes. Its a story of social revival … similar to other societies … that have weathered the storms of fascism. For Chileans … it appears like a small price to pay … for the joy of rejuvenation … of growing younger … past the stony fixity of age old ideas … that have outlived their usefulness.

Like several cities around the world … Santiago has embraced the annual Zombie walk … and it appears that its popularity has grown … as an instrument of mass culture … in their practices. My own fascination … in relation to my needs … is based on them being away from it all. I continue to live in a society … that's founded on the old ways of respect and social pride … and I am pressed to be a little whimsical on occasion … to side-step these … without appearing to criticize it for its lack of common sense.

Hence from having discovered the Cerro in Santiago … I have grown a little in my appreciation of the people there … and have come to feel a relation to their new sprouts of views about life. Besides … it helps me with the avoidance I make of my own society members on occasion … without being crass … or fall into another one of my dream perceptions … of what life ought to be. It works into a delicate balance of comfort … while engaging my awareness … of the way I have organized my perceptions.

Its a very significant action … on the part of anyone … who has worked on the reality of perceptions … and his knowledge of life … to be able to preserve the experience thereafter. I can only say of my society that … they continue to work at their understanding of life … and will I think … in time … come to its founding waters. In the meantime … I'm unlikely to perceive anything wrong in what they do … and hence I'm not rushing out to convince anybody of my perceptions on anything.

A man who has come on a long journey … of discovery and self realization … is likely to think that he needs to reform society … and in all good intention … bring to them … his benefits of understanding. That sounds great as an altruistic notion … and no doubt has fueled the lives of many social reformers in our recent past. But the times we live in … appears to say something … just a little different. It asks the question … ' If I can come to understand these matters … why can't everybody else? … what's stopping them?

I have viewed the prospect of a commercial gain from these matters … from time to time … but I am not convinced that a man who truly wants to know … will rely on someone else and not undertake his own ground breaking study. Hence I have a tendency to hold back on these … despite some financial pressures I expect I'll start to feel in the not-too-distant future. Its quite a balancing act … and I feel certain I don't want to leap onto … the best good excuse … since fascism.

Chile is around the world for me … ' on the other side ' … and yet its in my backyard across the Pacific Ocean. It affirms for me … what my social experience denies in me … on a daily basis. I don't know if I'm creeping up the ladder of the elitist … in my own surroundings. I've avoided creating any impression of it … with people I've met … nor have I created any initiative to 'work' the people I meet.

Its the experience of someone who spent his entire life pursuing an idea … sacrificing for it … re-organizing himself to accommodate its ways … and then … coming to realize that … he just learnt how to pat himself on the back. And to do so without some quirk-some sense of self vanity … nor the blatant empathy of the boaster … but someone who felt something to be true about himself … and proved to himself its so. That is still worth something.

We all create a great many excuses for the things we do. Sometimes we emerge from a burning house … simply to dash into another house on fire. ' I did my best ' … is an appellation we applied to ourselves … from another age. These days it may be ' what is my best?' In the old days a man would have spent a fortune to buy the books he needs … these days I got it all free on the internet. That ought to mean something … about our appreciation for the ways of providence.

Reviews

[A. Amos]

this was powerful, deep and amazingly interesting....I truly enjoyed!