We once celebrated those who pushed back against greed, from Dickens’ Christmas Carol to the Grinch: we must condemn greed and again celebrate community, love & selflessness
Wonderful piece; such great references to the forgotten perennial wisdom.
And why greed? Simply because when connection is left, there is an ever increasing drive to fill up the resultant inner emptiness.
And why connection left? India names this universal occurrence as The Dance of Lila, which I may have already shared. There is a drive in the universe for connected consciousness to become occluded, beginning a cycle to seek this forgotten fulfillment. The Prodigal Son, Siddhartha’s journey, and The Giving Tree, all stories of the life drive away from the initial blissful gift of connection, the subsequent increasing stress and near demise in erroneous attempts to regain it somehow, and the final, on the brink, realization of what gift we left behind, now to be reclaimed and owned.
We are here; inner and historical wisdom
starting to resurface, with a clear view of sky and virgin earth calling us, indigenous wisdom practices renewing, and subsequent pure spiritual teachings
recognized as speaking those truths and inherent values of life connection gifted us originally as part of the creation.
Our problem is that the greediest of the greedy possess the power to perpetuate their greed, so they will continue to cause enough of our poorly educated citizens to choose poorly educated public sector decision-makers. In addition, their greed is turbocharged by their equally toxic hubris which kills like no other of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Hi Dave. You know, "poorly educated" just doesn't 'splain it. My mom had a Masters from a prestigious U I won't shame by naming, and she was also off the charts on "toxic hubris." (I like that phrase!) Something going on deeper in the DNA.....
Daphne, one of my pet peeves is when someone uses terms and labels assuming that everyone knows what they mean, so I apologize for not defining what I meant by “poorly educated” and “toxic hubris.” I like to use “poorly educated” instead of more pejorative descriptors for people who really piss me off, for a few reasons. First, the name contains the root cause of their noxious decisions and behavior, so rather than just using vituperation, let’s learn how to teach them to become good at learning. We can offer them the choice to learn how to be good learners or not. Although I think this would only happen upon the dissolution of the cult and Trump’s heartfelt allocution to his high crimes of treason with aggravated grifting and genocide (and even then, some will never change). Second, if we used “poorly educated” as a label for Trump’s cult members, we can frame the message around why these folks choose to do what they do, and I’ll bet we will find that in general, they learned to be bad at learning and got sucked into the cult. Third using “poorly educated” provides an added benefit of offering them a face saving strategy of declaring that they were just victims of a poor education. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the poorly educated is that they have learned to seek victimhood. Basically, since they learned to make decisions that cause negative externalities and perpetuate oligarchic rule, they are poorly educated and dangerous. Regardless of how many degrees someone might have earned, if the totality of what they’ve learned leads them to be cult members of the biggest asshole grifter in history, they are poorly educated. If they believe that Trump loves them, they are poorly educated and if they continue to think that Trump won the election fairly, they are poorly educated. If they think it’s more important to “own the libs” than have our general welfare promoted, they are poorly educated. If they think teaching their children that racism should guide their decision-making, they are poorly educated.
As far as “toxic hubris” I would define it as decision-making spawned in arrogance that causes harm to others, for example, the poorly educated lawyers who came up with the label “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” and the negative externalities that followed.
So to use these two terms in a sentence, “Trump is toxically hubristic, toxically avaricious and both toxically and hubristically poorly educated.”
Never mind about what is existential "education." ("Alternative facts?") Seek and ye shall find, nowadays. But as for "toxic hubris," what I had reference to in personal experience was a family that passionately believed they were the arbiters of how other people should act, as family, and had a multi-generational history of "eating their own." Granddad fled age 14, and wouldn't speak to his brother 3 decades later. My mother's brother basically died hating his sisters. Yet they would go on and on about other people's morality and family values. That's Hubris, cap. H. Ugh.
Isn't there an old fable about the ant and the grasshopper, wherein the ant is prudent because it accumulates provisions against the Winter, and the grasshopper has to go begging to the ants when it gets hungry....something like that. There may be plenty of primitive DNA supporting a drive to have more stuff, and to compete, violently, to that end, in perpetual conflict with what we "dreamers" hope are our better instincts. Where is the "norm" to which there is retracement?
Earth is our only home, visually beautiful but harsh and unforgiving, death a constant companion. Still, despite impossible odds, fleeting and delicate, the seed of life has thrived and proliferated. This amazing feat of existence in the void and violence of space defies explanation. How is it possible? Why is it possible? What binds together all other forms of life in a holistic whole? Truly, what is intelligence?
The evolution of the body IS the evolution of the mind, IS the evolution of that state of being beyond thought, a thing we are forever defining and redefining that can't be defined, that ethereal consciousness we have labeled "soul." And the arrogance of "Man" has claimed "it" as their own, exclusive, isolated, deluded.
Thankfully, the larger reality in microcosm constantly alters one's perceptions. "My Octopus Teacher," a remarkable true story is now available on Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s0LTDhqe5A
Wonderful piece; such great references to the forgotten perennial wisdom.
And why greed? Simply because when connection is left, there is an ever increasing drive to fill up the resultant inner emptiness.
And why connection left? India names this universal occurrence as The Dance of Lila, which I may have already shared. There is a drive in the universe for connected consciousness to become occluded, beginning a cycle to seek this forgotten fulfillment. The Prodigal Son, Siddhartha’s journey, and The Giving Tree, all stories of the life drive away from the initial blissful gift of connection, the subsequent increasing stress and near demise in erroneous attempts to regain it somehow, and the final, on the brink, realization of what gift we left behind, now to be reclaimed and owned.
We are here; inner and historical wisdom
starting to resurface, with a clear view of sky and virgin earth calling us, indigenous wisdom practices renewing, and subsequent pure spiritual teachings
recognized as speaking those truths and inherent values of life connection gifted us originally as part of the creation.
Thanks, Old Dave.
☺️
Thanks so much.
🙂
☺️
Thank you, Thom.
Our problem is that the greediest of the greedy possess the power to perpetuate their greed, so they will continue to cause enough of our poorly educated citizens to choose poorly educated public sector decision-makers. In addition, their greed is turbocharged by their equally toxic hubris which kills like no other of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Hi Dave. You know, "poorly educated" just doesn't 'splain it. My mom had a Masters from a prestigious U I won't shame by naming, and she was also off the charts on "toxic hubris." (I like that phrase!) Something going on deeper in the DNA.....
Daphne, one of my pet peeves is when someone uses terms and labels assuming that everyone knows what they mean, so I apologize for not defining what I meant by “poorly educated” and “toxic hubris.” I like to use “poorly educated” instead of more pejorative descriptors for people who really piss me off, for a few reasons. First, the name contains the root cause of their noxious decisions and behavior, so rather than just using vituperation, let’s learn how to teach them to become good at learning. We can offer them the choice to learn how to be good learners or not. Although I think this would only happen upon the dissolution of the cult and Trump’s heartfelt allocution to his high crimes of treason with aggravated grifting and genocide (and even then, some will never change). Second, if we used “poorly educated” as a label for Trump’s cult members, we can frame the message around why these folks choose to do what they do, and I’ll bet we will find that in general, they learned to be bad at learning and got sucked into the cult. Third using “poorly educated” provides an added benefit of offering them a face saving strategy of declaring that they were just victims of a poor education. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about the poorly educated is that they have learned to seek victimhood. Basically, since they learned to make decisions that cause negative externalities and perpetuate oligarchic rule, they are poorly educated and dangerous. Regardless of how many degrees someone might have earned, if the totality of what they’ve learned leads them to be cult members of the biggest asshole grifter in history, they are poorly educated. If they believe that Trump loves them, they are poorly educated and if they continue to think that Trump won the election fairly, they are poorly educated. If they think it’s more important to “own the libs” than have our general welfare promoted, they are poorly educated. If they think teaching their children that racism should guide their decision-making, they are poorly educated.
As far as “toxic hubris” I would define it as decision-making spawned in arrogance that causes harm to others, for example, the poorly educated lawyers who came up with the label “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” and the negative externalities that followed.
So to use these two terms in a sentence, “Trump is toxically hubristic, toxically avaricious and both toxically and hubristically poorly educated.”
Never mind about what is existential "education." ("Alternative facts?") Seek and ye shall find, nowadays. But as for "toxic hubris," what I had reference to in personal experience was a family that passionately believed they were the arbiters of how other people should act, as family, and had a multi-generational history of "eating their own." Granddad fled age 14, and wouldn't speak to his brother 3 decades later. My mother's brother basically died hating his sisters. Yet they would go on and on about other people's morality and family values. That's Hubris, cap. H. Ugh.
Isn't there an old fable about the ant and the grasshopper, wherein the ant is prudent because it accumulates provisions against the Winter, and the grasshopper has to go begging to the ants when it gets hungry....something like that. There may be plenty of primitive DNA supporting a drive to have more stuff, and to compete, violently, to that end, in perpetual conflict with what we "dreamers" hope are our better instincts. Where is the "norm" to which there is retracement?
Earth is our only home, visually beautiful but harsh and unforgiving, death a constant companion. Still, despite impossible odds, fleeting and delicate, the seed of life has thrived and proliferated. This amazing feat of existence in the void and violence of space defies explanation. How is it possible? Why is it possible? What binds together all other forms of life in a holistic whole? Truly, what is intelligence?
The evolution of the body IS the evolution of the mind, IS the evolution of that state of being beyond thought, a thing we are forever defining and redefining that can't be defined, that ethereal consciousness we have labeled "soul." And the arrogance of "Man" has claimed "it" as their own, exclusive, isolated, deluded.
Thankfully, the larger reality in microcosm constantly alters one's perceptions. "My Octopus Teacher," a remarkable true story is now available on Netflix. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s0LTDhqe5A
Blow your mind.
Severe COVID tied to high risk of death, mostly by other causes, within year | CIDRAP:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/12/severe-covid-tied-high-risk-death-mostly-other-causes-within-year