I'm Just A Passing Through

     "It don't matter how woke you think you are; if you are
       living in a clown circus, you are probably one of the clowns."

    The stuff that is going on it our society keeps me awake at night. I grew up in the Sixties, and that was really a crooked piece of time, I spent most of it getting high, partying, and chasing around the ghosts of unformed desires. Yet, it was like living in Disneyland compared to now.

      There are many factors involved. I was watching the old movie Anatomy of a Murder, and I went to learn more about the cast and crew. I discovered that they were all dead. This sent a shudder down my spine and made me realize what a short sojourn we have on this planet. Far too short to get caught up in the mean spirited anger and wrath of  modern society.

    The movie featured the likes of Jimmy Stewart, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott, Lee Remick, Duke Ellington, and Eve Arden. The judge was played by Joseph Welch, the real judge who shamed Joseph McCarthy during the McCarthy hearings. The movie reminded me that once we pass on, all we really leave behind us is the narrative of our life, and in many cases, the narrative is as essentially unreal as a Hollywood production.

          For a movie to stand the test of time, it needs to align itself with the truth, and not just any truth, but the real truth, the one that exists deep inside us all. The one that reminds us when we act falsely. This applies to life also. Far too many of our personal and group narratives are as fake as a CNN newscast. The sad thing is, more often than not, we know it too.

      The thing that troubles me most about modern culture is how willing we all are to bury the truth down in the sewers of our soul and then build false structures on top of the thick, iron, manhole covers (Yes, I said fucking manhole) that we have placed on the gateways where the truth enters in the material world.

          We now believe in movie stars, sports figures, politicians, social movements, and pretty much anything that serves to obstruct our vision of reality. We have stood aside and let false image after false image be erected in the temple of the holy. The Jews took on the whole Roman Empire when the Romans erected an image of the emperor in their temples. Yet now, we let our children worship pixels in their bedrooms and our spouses and friends worship rock gods, reality stars, lying politicians, or sports heroes, and only very rarely do we look for the truth that lies within us all.

       I saw a movie once about the Odyssey wherein a seer named Cassandra tried to warn the Trojans not to take the giant wooden horse into the walls of Troy. She was immediately swallowed by a sea serpent apparently called forth by the collective desires of the Trojans to drink, party, and  dance around the wooden horse. Cassandra's warning (what happened to her and not her original warning) keeps far too many knowing people silent nowadays for who wants to end their days in the belly of a giant snake?

    People want to revel in their ignorance and digging for truth in subterranean tunnels is hard work. It's much easier to give yourself over to the flatulent language of the talking heads who blather out nonsense day and night.

      The ancient Egyptians placed a scale with a feather on one end to signify the judgement of the soul. If at the end of your life, your KA could move that feather one degree to the positive side, your soul was good to go.

       Jesus only said that purpose of life was to reject falseness and to do your best in embracing the truth and aligning your life to its dictates. The crazy people who squeezed all of the joy out of that message came later.

      I'll tell you what, if, like most religions say, there is a final judgement on how we lived our lives, I'd much rather present some evidence that I tried to live truthfully even though I often failed  than to walk before the judges quoting Eminem lyrics, talking about Elizabeth Warren's latest rant, or giving them my opinion as to who should start at quarterback for the Washington Redskins.

       I'd want them to know that I tried sometime and that I got down in the sewers and didn't depend on the mainstream media to provide me with a store bought truth sponsored by those people who sold me my insurance policy. 

       There are two modes of thought on the purpose of life, one that it has purpose, and two, that it doesn't. If you go to your death believing that your life meant something, and you at least tried to do your feeble best to live in accordance to that dictum, and you're wrong, well... you'd still be better off than those who believe that life has no purpose. 

      Your narrative would at least have the makings of a good movie, and those other fellows, they all had a bit roles in Pee Wee's Big Adventure.


            

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