SL B'Day Plea - 'START BEING GREEDY. DO UNTO THE LEAST ALL, ALL, ALL.' SL
[Note - Graphics to be inserted] This is much on my mind today because if you watch me the last couple of weeks you've seen me constructively obsess over, do I stay in DC, do I stay on hunger strike, do I hunger strike walking around the country trying to find signs of life...? I was right to do this but I was wrong to think that what I do ultimately matters.
What matters is whether I drive myself to the top of this pyramid - High skill, high challenge, High Pursuit. Gandhi never said it's what you do that matters, he said full effort is full success. King said it never, never said it matters who you are what you do. He said 'everyone can be great because everyone can serve.' Jesus never said it it matters whether you're a pastor or carpenter a teacher. He said,' do onto others, all you would have them do unto you.
This is the one answer to every important question in life - how do I feel good, how do I help my family, how do I save humanity, how do I give humanity a future? How do I escape my depression,how do I escape, escape my sadness. How do I have a positive life, what do I guide my child to.... Every important question has the same answer - Do unto the least of these our global neediest all you would have them do unto you.
Friends, uh, some of you sense that I know some very important things; that's my sense of it. And, how pitiful if I didn't, I thought the essential truths could be found and deeply known and lived, so for more than a dozen years I've made that the entire focus of my life and unless I'm a dishonest man or insane, and I'm neither, then without question, I was correct. There are essential truths to know, they are not the essential small 't' "truths" lived by our society. I know them, I get them, I live them, and they're as old as our DNA. They're as old as the universe but we don't live them. We don't recognize them. We trivialize them, and thereby we are defying the truth of how things work, which Gandhi understood to be God, quite correctly.
God, whatever God is, is what rules, correct? It is The rules, it is that which rules, it is the ruler whatever it is, sentient, nonsentient, That's God, and we have cleverly done what cancer does, which is, we've defied that which is good, that which advances life, for all the massive benefits that are fleeting (sarcasm), with total destruction, on the other side of our folly. So you either stop kidding yourselves that Start Loving knows some things, or you listen up to this video.
The Matrix is a movie I speak of often, I think of often, and the truth in a way is the flipside of what the movie shows, and Jean Baudrillard, the now deceased philosopher whose conception spawned the movie, his philosophical views spawned the movie, and the movie itself really in a serious way shows the inverse of the truth. The Matrix, false 'reality,' is what we understand to be the material reality outside of us. True reality that all you and I can ever know is the inside of our nervous system. It's an infinite universe. The inside of our nervous system for all intents and purposes is an infinite universe and you and I will never be able to escape that universe, not even for a second, ever. So it is kind of important to understand the features of that universe, right?
If we think about the physical universe I suppose it might be nice to know everything. We don't live that way, it would be insane. So we gravitate toward, sometimes very aggressively, and correctly, toward what's really import. Here what's really important - within our nervous system inescapably you and I are are creatures that pursue positive experience. It's inescapable, you and I can't change that. I don't ask you to accept any of this nor to waste your time arguing. If you, if you see the basic wisdom to what I'm saying then ponder deeply and embrace it more in your life. And if is seems like nonsense, stop wasting your time with me.
There are two types of positive experiences we human beings can and can't have and they are as yet, I think, unproven, but scientifically provable in terms of two different types of chemical cocktails in our brain. One associated with joy. The other is associated with intoxicating pleasures, that wonderful meal, that handsome guy that beautiful girl, that exciting, the intoxication, extrinsic rewards, that is things that we perceive to be outside of our nervous system that 'make us feel good. Joy is the wrong word, the reward for doing unto the least of these, these neediest parts of the our global family, all we, all we would have them do unto us. This is the only universal moral precept. This is the universal moral precept for virtually all cultures, all times in history, said different ways, the same thing, no double standards; what you would want desperaly to be done to you and yours, do to others. No double standards.
This is something that people 'made up' no more than people made up the most popular color globally would be violet. Both are what we're wired for. However, our wiring is so comprehensive, so complex, that we can invent ways that are not what we are wired to do. Our western culture is in the final stages of destroying human future, and future for every other species.
So the important features of our nervous system ultimately and absolutely are its ability to give us the experience of finding joy within or to find the experience of intoxication/pleasures from things 'outside of' or personal efforts and attempts to do 'Good.'
Not many people numerically have worked on this issue of, okay, what is it that produces joy, what is it that produces the experience of pleasure, intoxication; but our greatest minds have, and whereas we look at them only for entertainment, typically, they weren't interested in entertaining us; they were interested in saving us from wasting our lives on inferior intoxications and pleasures; so whether it's our artists, our philosophers, our great religious leaders, our great humanitarians, our movie and heroes of literature, they all point in different words and ways to what one of the few great constructive, non-toxic, non-psychotic, non-psychotic psychologists, Miholi Csikszentmihaly from University of Chicago most of his career, in his indispensable book 'Flow,' and more indispensable book, 'The Evolving Self, done from his global, sophisticated studies of people's reported, optimal or suboptimal experience; that uninterrupted continuing experience of joy which he called 'optimal experience' is found by anyone and everything when they were in a high challenge situation for which they have high skill, and which is of high meaning to the immediate collective - the town, the city, the country, or the world. This is true for our movie, virtually all of our movie heroes and literature, and our real life heroes like Gandhi, King, Jesus.
Don't we at some level know that they have the most desirable experiences that human beings can have? But we have built a culture on the cancerous notion that selfishness is the ultimate reward. This is just, well, if you don't know it's wrong, I love you just as much, but you're wasting your time, in any seconds you consider what I have to say. But if at some level you know that I'm dying to help you escape the insanity of the misdirection of our of our society, our insane western notion, that, oh no, the optimal human experience is found in leasure, selfish pleasures, for me and mine, our vacations, our over-privileged home, our overprivileged car, overprivileged food, and we embrace it, believe it.
If you think that's not the Truth, then save yourself from wasting your life. The moral greats, friends, are not about afterlife. Our greats were dying to get us a great live joyfully in this one, independant of any life after this one.
I totally believed in this heaven, all my years, and now I've lived it; for the last 12 years that I've lived this understanding.
Let's look at what some of the other options - what about high skill, high challange, but low meaning, as depicted here. Well, the intelligentsia in our society, the quasi-moral and good people in the society who are anything but, but they honestly, like I did most of my life, think that they are, this is where they focus. The rigourous understanding of the world's issues, the high accademic training, the meaningful conversations, the meeting, after meeting, after meeting over the world's issues; the serious discussions, the seroius political discussions, the working hard at a job that I hate, so that I can comply with socieity. Ok, if you're happy with it, fine. It's somewhat, actually, it can be highly pleasurable, but pleasure is always in cycles, unlike joy which is continuous and uninterrupted as long as we stay in the high challenge, high skill, high meaning pursuit that is doing for the least of these all we would have them do unto you; which makes whatever personal price it looks like we're paying, absolutely outside of consciousness, not of concern.
Or, we can spend our time in high challenge, low meaning, low skill. This is the place of burnout; this is the place of excuses, Well I tried. This is the place of depression. I tried, I keep on trying, but I'm not holding myself the standard of trying things that are are really worthwhile and I'm not holding myself to the standard of getting the skill, or living within the skills that I have.
And then there's the high skill, low meaning, low challenge. So inane video games, watching TV, watching movies, watching sex, sitting at the beach. Hour after hour watching; oh gosh, we're so emotionally illiterate. Try to see the difference within you of what your experiences of joy felt like, and what your experiences of pleasure felt like, and you may save yourselves from the mistaken notion that our mindless entertainment is worth a second more of your life.
Now, maybe you've seen that this is not a four-sidded cube, and I see now, a six-sided cube issue six sided cube. This is a six sided prism issue, but I didn't have that gadget, it is not part of PowerPoint. So you'll have to do the transition yourself.
So where is the best possible mother or father when their child needs their greatest help, they're at the top of this pyramid. They drive themselves to the highest level of challenge. They muster their highest skill, and of course pursuing their greatest meaning. So on the issue that I'm devoting my time to, which is doing my part to try and give humanity a future, whereas currently it looks like it's finally going to have a future, which is just Hell, this is where I'm getting my life be, and giving my life to try and get you to be. It's a win win win.
It's the only place where we'll find the intelligence, motivation, unceasing desire and drive and selflessness, joyful selflessness, to save ourselves, to save humanity, to save the future for eternity's yonng.
And finally friends, this is much on my mind today because, if you've watched me the last couple of weeks you've seen me constructively and obsess over do I stay in DC, do I stay on hunger strike, do I stay on hunger strike but start walking around the country trying to find signs of life. I was right to do this, but I was wrong to think that what I do ultimately matters. What matters is whether I drive myself to the top of this pyramid - High skill, high challenge, high meaning pursuit. Gandhi never said it's what you do that matters, he said, 'Full effort is full success.' King said it , never, never said it matters who you are what you do; he said 'everyone can be great because everyone can serve.' Jesus never said that it matters whether you're a pastor or carpenter a teacher. He said 'do onto others, all you would have them do unto you.' This is the one answer to every important question in life - how do I feel good, how do I help my family, how do I save humanity, how do I give humanity a future, how do I escape my depression, how do I escape my sadness, how do I have a positive life, what do I guide my child to - every important question has the same answer - Do unto the least of these are global neediest, all you would have them do unto you.
