July 4, 2009, Independence Day in the States, well, tomorrow. It's not quite the 4th of July here yet. My stepson is on leave from Afghanistan, talked about how patriotic the Americans are. It's a funny thing patriotism. I used to think about it in school, not the flag waving American brand but how quickly we band together against The Other. My home room in a contest with other home rooms, my class against other classes, my school against other schools, my state against other states and then of course, my country against and better than other countries. Sometimes, in my bleaker moments, I think we need an alien invasion to stop us squabbling amongst ourselves and get us to pull together. It's a strange kink in the human psyche that we have this Us against Them attitude. We always find an Other, whether it's the Aryan super race against the Jews, Gypsies, political activists and anyone else who didn't fit their idea of the perfect specimen, or as I see it here in Oz, the *native* Australians against, let's see, 50 or more years ago, the Italians and Greeks and Yugoslavs or now, that the mediterranean immigrants have been here for several generations, those new *natives* against the tide of refugees seeking a new start in this lucky country at great personal risk to themselves. Yet we're so afraid of losing something to them (jobs? culture? race purity?) we attack them; the Indians, Pakistanis, Afghans, Africans, Asians, etc. They are now the Other. White is right.
Another thing that occurs to me is how each country, race, even continent, has their time in the sun. Hundreds of years ago, the Portuguese ruled the world - and the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English. Now, for awhile longer, altho the sun is setting on their economic empire, the Americans. Who will be next? The Chinese? The Indians? I place my bet on the Chinese. That will be a bitter pill to swallow. Improved communication, the aforementioned patriotism and our increased tendency to violent eruptions may mean disaster.
On the other hand, there is an increased Self-Awareness. I am not normally pessimistic about the fate of the world. More and more people are turning to Spirit, in whatever guise or label they understand. I'm NOT talking about fanatical evangelical Christianity (Jesus would be spinning in his grave if he had one) as that seems as violent as the hard line Islamics, both determined to wipe the other from the planet. I'm talking about what could be conveniently lumped under New Age, despite it not being very new: Zen Buddhism, Wiccan, Paganism, all the self-help gurus and teachers, the New Age ethos which harkens back to the basic tenet of all the major religions; humility, treating others as you would like to be treated, forgiveness and above all else, love. Violence spreads but so too does this. We may not be able to change the world but we can make major changes to our place in it.
It's something I work on alot. I get angry, impatient, snide, callous, selfish -- all those icky traits. I see them, don't like them, don't even overcome them all the time but I try. I have a problem with a girl at work. I know she is a gift so that I may work on myself. When I resent her I very much doubt she knows. I am courteous, cheerful, etc. but inside I'm seething. Who does it hurt? Me. Who does that help? No one. So I continue to plug away at seeing her, really *seeing* her as another soul who is doing the best she can at this time. Like me.
It would be better if we, the entire human race, saluted one another on meeting, with Namaste - my soul greets and salutes your soul - to keep us mindful of who we really are. And who they really are. *They* are not The Other. They are ourselves looking back at us. When I hurt her (and thoughts are things as far as I'm concerned) I'm not hurting her. I hurt myself. It's so obvious when I think about it. We are all interconnected. The butterfly and the typhoon thing. So when we do violence to them, in thought, word or deed, we do violence to ourselves. Isn't that sad? It's like the human race has a severe self-image problem.
All this talk about love and kindness and non-violence and there's a fly that keeps landing on my face. I want to kill it. Ironic, eh?