Getting naked

To my ear, the phrase “Lest we forget” has a chiding, slightly ominous ring to it, echoing George Santayana’s platitude that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. In fact, the opposite is true. Those who remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Look at the oldest cultures on the planet, how they fight with themselves and each other. And with such ferocity! In the spiritual sense, we renew ourselves by forgetting ourselves. This happens every night in the state of deep sleep. If it didn’t, we’d go mad. And we do it consciously via meditation, wordless prayer, or total surrender to what is. We even do it just before we take a bath. By ridding ourselves of convention. By getting naked.

Bound. And determined

Is one culture better than another culture? One prison better than another prison? One ego better than another ego? We are fixated on our confinements. On how to improve, fix and reform them.

Safety in numbers

Overheard: “Family is everything.” “My children are my proudest achievement.” “He died surrounded by family.” Culture is groupthink. Its aim is to create a fear of being alone. To alienate us from ourselves.

Hacking a hoax

I’ve always had the feeling that I don’t fit in. I felt this as soon as it was possible to feel it, as a very young boy. This feeling of alienation and strangeness has been my constant companion, placing me at odds with a culture whose first rule is “Fit in” and whose second rule is “Do what you’re told.” But this, finally, is where I live. I’ve never not known that the culture is a hoax.

Feeling the elephant

To the extent that culture is a good thing, counterculture is a better thing. We are all born into a culture, a rationalized defensiveness. Shortly thereafter, we stop seeing the world as it is and start seeing it through a kaleidoscope of religion, tradition and politics. This distortion of reality causes us to flail around blindly while doing so with one hundred percent conviction.