Hello everyone,
----------------------------------------
> Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:12:06 -0700
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [MD] The Brujo
>
>
> hi dan, thanks for that story.
Hi gav, you're welcome.
>gav:
> i am more on walter's side re: astrology. not inferring causative relations,
> just saying everything's an analogue all the way down and up...think the
> stars and planets are 'out there'?
Dan:
agreed. walter is an allegory like everything else. as a person who has spent
countless hours under a dark starry sky, i honestly don't know if those stars
and planets are really out there or not. i suspect both.
>
> been thinking about another brujo - the biggest brujo of them all in modern
> times: gandhi. he provided the cosmic balance to hitler. he kicked the
> british out of india by being a peasant, by being honest, by being brave, by
> refusing to hate anything and by being very very smart. he was after all a
> distinguished attorney.
>
> we see nowadays a situation that seems hopeless to us (does to me a lot
> anyway) but if one man can free 700 million indians...how can we not succeed?
>
> what i am getting at is that we need to learn this lesson. gandhi
> SUCCEEDED.he succeeded because he strategically outhought the empire and
> because he was real, normal - humble. because he had nothing!
>
> he never reflected back the violence that the british showed him and the
> indian people. and when violence was shown by indians he refused to accept
> and fasted til he died or they stopped.
>
> the simple truth of gandhi's victory seems salient today - non-cooperation.
> it is simple, it is direct, it is non-violent but it is not passive - it is
> very very active. the english could not govern india without the consent of
> the indians - so simple. and when they withdrew their co-operation india
> stopped. and no amount of brutality could deflect their collective spirit.
> 'you can break my bones, even kill me but then you will only have my dead
> body - not my obedience'
>
> what is our empire? what is our raj? well to return to that cosmic twin of
> gandhi's - hitler, we see the picture emerge. hitler won. we have to face
> that truth. we live in a totalitarian world, a fascist world. this is the
> fact of the matter. the empire is everywhere and primarily it is in our heads.
>
> our occupying power is the giant's voice that occupies our minds. we are all
> occupied, to a greater or lesser extent. no man is an island. we cannot free
> ourselves without everyone being free.
>
> no one is free: not the slave, not the master. as long as division remains we
> have only the totality of global fascism, not the unity of a sane world.
>
> we are all clinically insane. fact. we do things everyday that destroy the
> very things we need to live. we destroy, we acquiesce, daily we are our own
> police. we are fucking nuts man. we are rearranging deckchairs on the titanic.
>
> unless....unless we are choosing destruction. unless we are actively choosing
> this total nihilism, a sort of trance in which we mortify ourselves and the
> world....in an effort to shake a metaphysical fist at an uncaring universe or
> a vengeful god.
>
> nihilism. that's the problem, metaphysically speaking. pirsig is one of the
> solutions to it.
>
> so what to do? what does non-co-operation mean for us today? does it mean
> refusing to participate in destroying the earth? does it mean to refuse to
> accept violence, injustice - anywhere in the world? does it mean the
> transcendence of nihilism? a sort of positive nihilism in which we reveal the
> values of our universe through our actions with others in it? the solidarity
> of the earth.
>
> perhaps, like gandhi, it means giving up money?
>
> perhaps we need an 'earth day'; a day when we don't work, drive, buy, use
> fossil fuels. a day of just giving the earth a break. maybe this day would
> show us how easy it is to stop the machine.
Dan:
I don't have any answers. I'm a coward. I'm content to live and die happy in my
own little corner. I've thought about how I can contribute to the greater good.
But whatever I do seems to backfire. I find what I judge to be good is not
what's necessarily good for my neighbor.
I am sure Gandhi must have been a wonder. I'm sure if he'd have truly looked at
the magnitude of the task before him, he would have given up before he started.
I imagine him taking baby steps, one at a time, until the end was in sight. I
think looking at it like that gives us all the power to tackle even the
impossible.
Still, the earth is not in need of saving, imo. It will throw humanity off like
we throw off a virus. We have little chance of surviving as a species for even
a few million years. And after we're gone it'll be as if we were never here at
all. Kind of like old Walter...
Thank you,
Dan
Won't you take me back down to Mullenberg county,
Down by the Green river where paradise lays.
I'm sorry my son but you're too late in asking,
Mr. Peebody's coal train has hauled it away.
[John Prine]
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