Insatiable Hunger

This insatiable hunger. 

Throughout my memory, as I look over the fragments that make up this life, it all adds up to one question that begs to be answered. What will nourish this unending feeling that lingers underneath, in the background? 

I understand now, looking back, that I have yet to have the opportunity to address the hunger… the longing. There were things I had to do - I had a debt to pay my brother. Somewhere along the line, I was committed to make things even. All that has happened has led me towards this end. I don't know what he ever did for me; I don’t know how far back it goes nor how long it’s been. But now, I can see on the horizon, a conclusion. My obligation is nearly finished, as perhaps his is too. And as one door closes, another begins to open... Ohh, how I have longed for this day to come. 

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t hungry. Always a dull, overwhelming, pressing angst driving me forward, and holding me back. Now, I can see, everything I felt was true. There will come a time when this hunger will find it’s other half. Rest will find me. And perhaps a freedom I remember from a dream. 

Healthy Humanity

In our struggles in search of: healthy, natural, normal, happy, etc, we have skipped a fundamentally important question.  Health of...?  A normal...what?  What is it that is happy?  

If we have no fundamental definition of what a human-being is, then we have no basis upon which to act to change the circumstances we find ourselves.  

Our medicine, food, economics, architecture, socio-political structure, cultural norms, moral standards, are all facets of society born and built upon the definition of what a healthy human-being (and thus healthy society) is.  If we have no clear definition and/or we are confused about our condition, then the constructs of society will thus be disorientating, confusing, exhausting (and possibly harmful), as seems to be the case in the modern world.  

So long as we are confused about the human condition, is to the extent which we will continue to generate a confusing world in which human-beings find themselves in states of suffering and struggle.  

Thus, the need to find what is 'wrong' in society can relax.  You can only find what is wrong in human society if you know what a normal (healthy) human-being is (you can only know sick if you know healthy).  Therefore, if we are interested in generating a healthy society for human-beings, then the first (and last) question becomes: what is a human-being?  Inclusive in the definition of humanity resides the answer to any question imaginable.  

Elementary Education

Our (American) education model was/is designed with the purpose of turning the individual into a cog in the machine of industry/production to create things for our merchant society to trade.  

The question then becomes:

What exactly are we selling, and does our product work to enhance relationship between humans?  We are producing and selling to humans, so what we produce must positively influence society and relationships between humans, right?  However, if we are unsure what a human-being is, we have no basis upon which to measure our success as a merchant class of people.  

Elementary Education, in the true sense of the term, is the study of what it means to be a human-being (did you ever get that education?) -- which is the study of the inherent relationship/appetite phenomena.  

It is the fundamental case, that we are driven (naturally) and directed (via appetite) to be in a set of relationships (to both beings and things), the likes of which we have no capacity to explain with any certainty or completeness.  Modern society is the outcome when we ignore the fact that relationship is taking place of-itself.  

If we ignore the fact of relationship, then creating a story about who I am and why I am here becomes very important (hence Facebook lol).  However, if we have even a small amount of Elementary Education, then this anxious and hysterical drive to create a story of meaning/value relaxes.  Then there is no need to pacify and dull our senses with endless entertainments and empty food so that we needn't pay attention to the situation we find ourselves.  Then there is no reason to prove to ourselves that we (as a class of merchants) are producing valuable goods and services with meaning and purpose to justify our existence... btw, why do we need to justify our existence?  To whom are we justifying?  Who are we serving exactly?  

Without this basic elementary look at what it means to be human, then it is easy for another being, with ambition and focused desire, to convince us we should work for them and their ideas (modern/industrial society).  Without basic human education - ambition, violence, power, control, greed all look sensible - but all lack a basic understanding of the human condition.  This understanding (which is not an idea, rather an experience) is the meaning of the word wisdom.  Wisdom is the basic Elementary Education we were trained away from by those who had something to sell us.  

As it is, wisdom would undermine our entire modern life, as we are accustomed to it - and so it takes a lot of work/effort/struggle to keep ourselves from looking at our fundamental nature in order to keep up the status quo of modern human relationship based on an industrious/mechanical model of humanity in a society which requires the belief that the buying and selling of things/ideas has meaning/value.  

Winter's Here

A window opened today
and a cold wind blew through
the shutters flew
on the surface grew
a vibrant young radiant hue
the thick of the night
held the blooming moon rays
like a soft shroud blanket

A window opened today
and through it came
a tired tried and true
someone who
knows how to
keep it all together
crying he lied
laughing he died
altogether a fool

A window opened today
and not far away
song birds were singing
the smell of fall leaves
letting from the eaves
of white birch trees leaving
peering out to look
in a think winter cloak
on a misty dewy morning

A window opened today
and somewhere along the way
somebody told me to
see the trees growing
feel the crisp breeze snowing
to smell the leaves falling
hear the bird song calling
now there is no way
without glass or shade
to see things like they do
winter is here
crystal clear
death to all knowing

Bay Arian

A Bay Arian is a person who:
a. Lives or resides in or around the San Francisco Bay Area.
b. Has no cultural grounding/basis upon which actions stem.


In a desperate attempt to find some meaning and grounding in life, we Californians, and those of the Bay Area in particular, are adopting practices of other cultures. 

Regardless of what we choose to believe, in the United States our view of what humans are and how we relate to the world has a grounding in a Christian outlook of life. Though many of us residing in the Bay Area have renounced this view and its practices, the eyes through which we view the world, ourselves, and all relationship is fundamentally Christian in nature. This is neither good/bad, right/wrong. We must understand though that our view of the world and the practices we adopt together create the outcomes we experience.

When we have a view which we do not recognize, combined with a hodgepodge set of practices stemming out of cultures and views that are not our own, our experience of life will certainly be one of confusion, struggle, suffering, and doubt. Having no culture which lends a feeling of connection, purpose, lost amidst a sea of practices not our own, we are left to establish meaning and significance in life on our own, as individuals. Thus it makes sense that we meander about trying on the practices of other cultures like we are shopping, never finding any sense connection or common purpose. It then makes sense that we are deeply afraid of everyone around us and why we have so much hate in our hearts.

We must understand that in our attempt to establish some new cultural base, our view is as important, if not more so, than the practices we adopt or establish. However, most of us are scanning and trying out the practices of others in the search for the 'right' or 'correct' way of doing things. This is fundamentally naive and stems from the Christian idea of there being the morally right way of living as dictated by a creator God. But, when we get right down to it, all practices are fundamentally the same. There is no right or wrong, good or bad. There is only the view you have melded with the practices you undertake and the fruition of view/practice moving free of any moral dilemma. It is only us that bring the judgments to the table.

If we are truly interested in fruition, we must see that we are viewing ourselves and the world through the Christian lens. That we have adopted the idea that after a long period of struggle to change our circumstance and what we are (sin), eventually, we will find the right way of living and all will be right and good (heaven). And that once we find this right way of doing things, it is then up to us to teach it to others and show them the right way (savior). Then to the extent that others agree with the right way, is to the extent they are our friends and to the extent they disagree, our enemies (God sanctioned hate and war).

Thankfully though, if we look at things free of the Christian view, there exists no mandate that any of us agree or disagree with the way life actually is. We are wholly free to have any view and any practice we so desire and life has no response other than the fruition of our view and practice.

So welcome to our reality my fellow Bay Arians! My confused and desperate brothers and sisters. May we all see with unclouded eyes or original nature. May we all be free to adopt any practice that makes sense to us with the view that coincides for the fruition of all beings and things.