High Hopes

Eagle Eyed

I will always remember Pele … for his remarks to the inquiry … ' How do you do it? ' … and Pele's … ' If I have to think about it … I can't.' That comes from a place in us … at the very seat of the passions … that views the world around us … in a way that is completely integrated with everything. Its as if … a light in our bodies … identifies itself with all light … and knows what to expect … in the way it creates a response … from our bodies and mind.

 

Science brings a curious term to the experience. In reference to love … it fashions a notion … that our passions … are in adoration of someone. That word is inamorata. It is not the Valentine day … experience of love … its more … its the love of the all … perhaps all creatures living … perhaps even the love of a Gaia for her creation. Its the mystic of the poet … the impassioned faith of the swamy … and the tabla thumping … gaiety and dance … at the airport … by folks calling themselves … the Hare Rama Hare Krishna movement.

 

It makes the claim that life should be lived in adoration of itself … as the creator. It creates the suggestion that worship … should be a dance … like the dancing dervishes of Arabia … or the Bharatya Natyam of the Indics. It celebrates itself like an Halloween … or a mardi gras … or simply the pantomime on the street corner. And sometimes … in a circus act … it portrays itself as a clown …  foolish and feigning surprise.

 

Its the mother's best friend. But its always like … ' Ma … can't you make sense of what its saying? And its not only Ma …  its the way society has taken to the light of the electric bulb … away from the shadows of the kerosene lamp.  I remember as a kid … in the experience of the inamorata … encountering a neon advert for the first time. It was the moving kind … and featured the name of a company … and its logo … that displayed a man striking the anvil with a hammer. It produced a fear in me … that I was soon to leave all these … incredible natures of the deep passions … and move into the light.

 

Today … in the training we've received …  schooling … social behavior … and the instant electric switch … for the light … we fear the dark. And together with that we fear … the deep passions … in their primal states of adoration … and are quick to refer that to the anima. We create an avoidance from it … and it responses with dreams and nightmares … consistent with our rejection … of its primal origins.

 

Sadly … civilization in its advancement … creates such an effect in our individual and social natures. It turns the passions into a container of our suspicions … doubts … and paranoid sensations. And where these become enmeshed with our difficulties in society … forms the basis … for the rise of acrimony and rage … at others for the hurt we feel. In some cases it even … leaps over the normal assurances … we create with institutionalized faith … and social assurances.

 

At such times … we apply ourselves to our normal instruments of the body … for a regulatory guide on our impulses. And we realize that our usual biases … the way we laugh at ourselves …  put -me-down … or referring to the weaknesses of the flesh … helps us to mitigate the active nature of the creative passions … and serves to limit the suggestion of possibilities. The primal passions … in relating to mind … have a natural behavioral tendency … to incessantly search for perfection.

 

Our social conventions … hint at the condition of man … as limited. We are not Gods … and we are certainly not perfect. We confine ourselves to human concerns. We postpone the search for perfection to the future.  However for the time being … and in relation to our social achievements … we apply ourselves to the social average. ' I'm not that smart '… ' 'I'm okay for what I've accomplished with my career ' … ' I'm just like anybody else.'

 

A person being contested for not trying hard enough … feels the moral imperative for greater effort. That has certainly been true of our lives … especially in a situation of virtue or integrity.  However … new societies set up by the hand of  circumstances … sometimes impose a high standard of achievement on its members … that becomes a way of life. It the teething problems … when we first … try to shape the ways and means to the future.

 

The American war of independence … the invasion of Iran by Iraq after the fall of the Shah … stand out as illustrations … of societies influenced in their formative years by the despair of utter collapse … that lasts long in their memories. An awareness of these influences … helps to moderate their effects … through a refinement of social attitudes … as dividends of the peace times. It generates an attitude of rehabilitation … to the norms of normal society … and we ought to find the ' Alamo ' of its origin and put that ghost to rest.

 

In my pre-adult years … I was clinically diagnosed as experiencing … ' acute anxiety.'  At this time I am viewing such an experience … as arising beyond the normal human sphere of activity and achievement. It appeared to have been sourced in the creative energies … as if creation itself was crying out for a little housekeeping … with regards to its normal instruments. I  figure we go through that … once in a while … in keeping with the seasons of the earth. Its certainly a reminder of how evolution works … to advance itself.

 

Man's approach to the forces of the deep creative passions … has certainly been to harness the power of life … into application in our societies. But shouldn't it also be done without the injuries that we sometimes sustain … and to engage that … in a stable manner? In the accomplishment of something difficult … we create the very … awkward arrogance … of having dealt with something … that is unique and near impossible. We ought to create the realization … that such passions are us … and it might respond better to being viewed as normal … and part of our daily activity. And may be … we ought to enjoy a little … what we do.