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Moral Fixation...

Posted by CMOR Posted on: 06/19/08

Moral Fixation...

"Life is too true to be good..."

These are the words I wrote in my song, 'Entropy And Irony' (hear it in SONGS section!) last winter, during a long and difficult chapter of dragging my soul's feet... When I sculpted the phrase it rolled so easily from the tip of my brain that I often overlook its basic profundity... I tend to get so caught up in the glamour of rhyming and timing that I forget at times what I am supposed to be learning... My creative thoughts can pop up from nowhere, and I long ago stopped needing to know what they mean before I use them where they seem to fit... The more obscure and bizarre the concept, the longer it usually takes to decipher what I meant by it... Though these are always the thoughts that slam me with waves of joy when I finally 'get it'... Or waves of any real feeling...

But my creative process is best left to another blog... Today I aim to open up about the nature of good and evil, right and wrong, chozen and frozen, judgement and 'can't we all just get along?'... It's a huge subject, and one to which I have no real answers... But if we dive into this as playful puppies seeking to enjoy yipping about, we may discover new pathways to living more freely and even win a smiling debate with a happy rebate...

And this particular day I haven't prepared a grand diatribe on justice and mercy, etc... I just woke up with a great title idling in my mind, Moral Fixation...' and I knew instinctually to give it some attention... Hope I haven't instinct up the place... heh heh...

"Life is too true to be good..."

What does it mean to me? Well, there seems to be a very natural essence to life, and I don't just mean MY life, though I admit I am limited to my own perceptions... But as I look around and experience the wonders in every direction, I observe a realness that I simply cannot place an evaluation onto... I mean, I could, but need I? Let's play a scenario out with something I cherish most highly... Fresh fruit that nearly falls into my hand as I gently tug on it is one of the simple joys of having a mouth and some tastebuds left...

I know deep down that a beautifully ripened peach is still delicious and life giving, even if I do not judge the process and label it 'good'... If the peach somehow contains some e coli bugs, and I suffer debilitating bodily trauma, does it truly help to evaluate that experience as 'bad'?!? And if said debilitation kept me from going outside, where I would be gunned down by a misunderstood teenager with an assault rifle, would I feel better for having dodged a mullet and judge it as, 'good'? If I then became an evil dictator of the Altered States of America, and brought calamity to everyone alive, would I call myself, 'bad' in the end? Do you see where the judgement game may lead? We humans like to be commentators in this game of life, like a sports announcer with a big white wig... And yes, I admit, it's a fun distraction if one has a lifetime to give to that pursuit... But there are other options...

Life just is... I mean, check me if I am wrong, but the more I honestly accept what is and not what I wish life to be, the more arbitrary the universe seems... Please understand that I find this to be an EXTREMELY personal benevolence that all beings appear to be connected with at various levels... When we strip away all the labels we apply to life, it's like both a newborn baby and a tempest tossed ocean... It is constantly inviting us to dive into the unknown and experience what there is to be... And that's where it gets more fuzzy... Language doesn't help, especially when folks want to be right, or feel right, etc...

Whenever I am okay with me as I am, when I just catch myself acting in all manner of human behavior, I notice that it makes me laugh to see myself... It's a form of self love that I denied me for so long... Fear and doubt and other crap usually chokes out seeing, and so we live our life... But when I accept me for who I am, a greater sense of me, a Be More CMOR rises to the surface and flows like the All-Knows...

At these moments I am fully free and blissfully content with who I am... Also, I am then most inclined to behave in a selfless way which creates ripples of peace in my world and existence at large... This is why I feel that if we all could grasp staying in love with life and each other on an indefinite basis, we would need no laws or money or even names... But one thing at a time, eh? I like to 'Imagine'... Yet I also keep it real, for balance's sake...

Let's go back to scary creation myths that so many react to because they are touted by people who so often miss the point of what they are touting... There was a garden... A couple... A tree with fruit called, 'Knowledge of Good And Evil...' The couple ate the fruit and it screwed up their perceptions... Bang!! Yer fed!!! Now if you wanna get theological I can cast my pearls before swearing... Though I would prefer to just explore a highly interesting concept that is maybe overlooked because of fear... And fear is huge!!! It's real... But I use it as my teacher, to show me where I need to shed light on in order to make ALL of existence my comfort zone...

If we apply our good/bad faculties simply because we have the capability, doesn't that make us more like fleshy robots that can't even piss in a toilet without being trained to? We are conditioned creatures, so it naturally means we either need more conditioning, or need to UnCondition... Hmmm... Something I remeber about Unconditional... Wow!! I am having a CMOR moment, but it's too raw right now...

I hope this is making some sense... It takes a full acceptance of reason as well as a gentle denial of belief, or what we think it means to believe... Once again, I can't tackle theology right now... I love when people are loving for the sake of their creeds and values, or any other sake... Bottom line... But based on the logical outcome of what I am aiming to convey, I would also say that I would love those not loving at all...

It then becomes each person's responsibility to discover who they are and what it means to them to love in the moment... My mom, bless her heart, once told me, "Craig... God KNOWS I love him..." as if that was enough for all time so that she could go back to watching the news... Now I probably sound judgemental of my mum, yet is loving an action verb or a state of being? One thing, as a noun it gets bogged down by gratuitous definitions and unattainable idealism...

G.K. Chesterton said, "It's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting... It's that it has been found difficult and left untried..." Now, most church goers may smugly quote this and draw security from their comfort zones, but I find it far too easy to aim that quote right back at the entire religion... And not in a divisive way... It's simply that maybe most folk wish to just get along their own way, whether in a church or not... So they easily become the ones leaving it 'untried'...

Because the same doctrines talk about not judging as a way of life!!! That's black and white, folks... I remember lines like 'Judge not, lest you be judged...' and used to worry about a freaky afterlife tribunal like the phantom zone trial in the first Superman movie (1980's)... "Guilty!!!" resounded from each glowing face, until General Zod was banished for all eternity... How did I get these bizarre concepts? Really?!? I have never been dead, so I have zero actual knowledge of such things... To make claims is to remain in the realm of Santa Claus, the Midgard Serpent, and, well, the everyday hell that we call earth...

I fully accept, however, that if I judge I will be judged... But I often notice it is ME who is doing the judging!!! I am an overbearing bully with myself, literally crucifying me for the slightest not-okay-ness in any given situation... I have a hunch it is a universal human phenomenon, and I don't even care if it came from ancestral fruit ingestion, or a prometheal theft of fire, etc... We all judge ourself first and most harshly, which then causes us to rip new assholes in varying degrees in the lives of those around us... Whether in our hearts or out in the open, it always comes back to greet us with more self-judgement...

So, I just wanted to point at it so we can look or not look as we are inclined... I am not out to change the world... Or I am, but I told my dad last week,

"The only time people have ever changed was when I chose to see them differently..."

This is pure CMOR, and you can quote me on that... Everyone is okay when I withhold my judge... It's difficult to imagine never judging, so just have one moment free of it, then another and so on... Pretty soon the moments connect like a dot to dot, and this becomes a lifetime of sainthood, in any or no faith...

Think about it... Recall a person who you knew to be a trustworthy and openhearted individual... If you ever simply observed them to see what makes them tick, they were likely very patient with just about anyone who crossed their path... Maybe they appeared to be comfortable in vastly diverse circumstances, free to enjoy their everyday life... Maybe they had profound answers when asked for their opinion, though maybe they seemed quiet most of the time... I don't know how your particular role model was or is, though the people I adore for their objective love of all things and all folk, they were living in a heaven on earth... Forget the afterlife, peeps... The kingdom of heaven is at hand... Um, maybe you know who said that?

So all this I could just as easily let go of for the sake of loving and being open to learning new things... I find that wisdom comes back when we need it... That I don't have to carry all these tools for living well around in my head like a refrigerator on a one-day hike... If it's real wisdom and truth, it resonates within me and super-energizes me... If I cling to it I may miss the next one that comes along... It's the exact same way for my creative process, because it's all just the art of living... I have described it humorously as the 'drunk jedi' role, not quite looking but always finding... Always seeing yet never minding... That's what makes it so fun...

I don't have to wake up on Sunday and go to a sacred space... I can simply 'Wake Up' and be in a sacred space anywhere... Yes, some spaces are more fun than others, but by not judging right from wrong I have expanded my boundaries until they meet on the other side of the globe... I mean, that's an ironic thought about directions, that east and west are relative to the one pointing... When I was in China, an 'eastern country' would have been The United States... Hah!! If we ever just made the whole world our home, we could live here like we were on vacation!!!

Um, I have no ending to this posting, as it's not so much the culmination of a fully developed thought process, but more a slice of, "What's Inside My Head Right Now?"... So I will close with a poem I wrote for a friend recently... Their spouse basically rejected vows and took off for another country, leaving my friend to feel abandoned and hopeless of saving what once was... As this person related a perspective of resentment mixed with honest pain and suffering, the statement arose that there would always exist a feeling of having been 'wronged'...

Being the foolish fixer that I can be, I attempted to shake and wake, to apply my wise BS onto them... Maybe it IS a path to freedom and healing, to hold no wrongs so closely... Maybe it IS a key out of all prisons, to not look with a critical eye... Though I freely admit that my attempts to 'help' were met with walls and distance... I awoke the next day with this poem, which was meant as an encouragement... May it help you right some wrong, or even wrong some right!!!

Righting Wrong...

Do you wanna feel alright,
Or do you wanna feel all wrong?
Brother, do you wanna light?
Love is how we get along!!!

Do you feel right and true,
Or do you feel left behind?
Do you wanna piece of me,
Or do you want peace of mind?

You wanna feel right as rain,
Or maybe just justified?
Wanna take pride in pain?
Verify you're terrified!!!

Do you wanna feel alright,
Or do you wanna feel all wrong?
Do you see the end in sight,
Or do you see the end in song?

You want to feel right like an angle?
Or maybe just a few degrees shy...
Do ya wanna be mighty, or mangled?
It's all about loving the lie...

You wanna write the Book of Life?
Wanna judge right from wrong?
Does selfless ever suffer from strife?
Does selfless even need to be strong?

Don't you love to feel alright?
Is it within your rights to hold wrongs?
Don't you wanna shed some light?
Your Beloved always belongs...

I hope we are all still friends after this here posting... Like I said, it's not coming from judgment of you or the rest of humanity... I just thought it'd be a great time to share what is fueling my newfound strenth to be the freest I have ever been... I mean, life is definitely working for me right now... So if even one person finds a kinship with even one sentence of this writing, then posting this has been worth going postal... If I sound opinionated, I am stepping on your fears and attachments... Oops! I didn't know they were so strong!! But I am first among men for flaws and blah blah blahs... Though this is a bit too critical... And so was that... And that? Hmmmm...

Remind me not to GOOGLE my titles... I just did a search for 'Moral Fixation...' I guess I didn't create this title after all, though I believed it original when I thought of it this morning!!!

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