I got to thinking about this while wandering around in Dublin with a brother who tends to be a tad...uh...reactionary when the essential goodness of America is questioned. :-)
He kept quoting the political messages and slogans he believes in, and that tend to shape his reaction to world events. Me, I had just finished reading some Tibetan texts that spoke of the inevitable karmic effects of indulging in certain emotions. The theory was that, no matter what the cause, the *karma* of choosing to "wear" certain emotions is predictable, a Done Deal. That is, indulge in anger, and the outcome of "wearing" the mindset of anger is predictable (and not positive), *no matter what caused the anger*. Same with hatred, to an even greater degree. Same with fear or self- pity -- those who indulge in that mindstate reap the...uh...benefits of seeing the world through fear-colored or "poor me"-colored glasses. As opposed to the emotions that the Tibetans feel have a positive effect -- for the world and for the person "wearing" them. Love, joy, a sense of hope, caring for and taking care of one's fellow man, the desire to *give* to the world (as opposed to *take* from it), that sorta thang. So I came up with my own half-assed theory of how to tell what the real *intent* was behind any political post on the Internet or what the real *intent* was behind any political speech or ad. It's pretty simple -- just determine the EMOTION that the post or speech or ad is appealing to. What emotion does the speaker want you to FEEL after reading or hearing it? I highly recommend it as an exercise in "seeing." Just read some of the posts here, or the speeches being tossed around in the political arena, and *especially* the carefully-crafted ads that appear during election time. If you sit back and determine that the poster/ speaker wants you to feel outraged and angry when you read/hear what they post, then their *intent* is clear, and to some extent the inevitable karma of their approach is equally clear. Anger begets more anger; chances are that the person who appeals to this emotion is *comfortable* being angry, and thus *intends* others to be...and stay...as angry as he is. Same with hatred, but to an even greater degree -- those who find it easy to hate tend to cast their speech in terms of "justified hatred." And the easiest of all "messages" to suss out are those that appeal to fear; it's pretty clear that the speaker wants you to *feel* fear after hearing the message. Such people are comfortable living in fear, and they want others to live there, too, because a fearful people are an easily-controlled people. And, once you've developed this trick of viewing the political rhetoric of the world in terms of what EMOTION it appeals to, notice how *rare* it is that anyone appeals to the higher emotions -- joy, love, caring for one's fellow man, etc. To his credit, Maharishi sometimes does this, although he tends to muddy the message up with appeals to fear and self importance a lot. But most of the other "pundits" of the world seem to have settled for appeals to righteous anger or downright hatred and most often fear in their attempts to reach the people and "inspire" them to do what the "pundits" want them to do. Me, I'm waiting for someone -- anyone -- who can cast his political message in terms of a positive message, and who rises above the "easy path" of casting it in a negative light. It's *easy* (and *lazy*) to present one's political "solution" in terms of the "bad guys" and try to stir up anger and/or hatred against them. But if you look at history, these types of people rarely have anything positive of their own to contribute once they've gotten rid of the "bad guys." IMO, it's because they've given little to no thought to what it means to be a "good guy," and to actually have some positive solutions. It's *easy* to blame, and so these lazy fucks just blame. They *need* the "bad guys," because they have no real positive ideas of their own to present. I'm waiting for the politician, whatever their party affiliation, who seems to remember that there *is* such a thing as positivity, and who casts his or her speech in a positive light, appealing to the positive and life-supporting emotions of the public he/she claims to want to help. Unfortunately, it looks as if I may have to wait a long time... To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
