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.
There is a tendency in men to say what other men say, to believe what other men believe, and to go where other men direct them. We’ll call this expert-itis or sheep mind. Or religion. Or politics. Or armed service. Our unwillingness to stand alone, to be alone, to find ourselves within ourselves, betrays a great fear. And where fear is, love is not.
The world can only be rescued from the inside out, lovingly, not from the outside in, legislatively. For this reason, disregard the man who claims to know what is best for other people.
Peace is a state of mind, not a political achievement. It’s the absence of thought, not the presence of a prescribed social order. A peaceful mind is quiet, still, mirror-like. Mirrors are indifferent to what they reflect.
If everything happens as it must, where’s the sense in saying, “This should never have happened.”? Or: “This is unacceptable!” The word heaps of politics and religion may be understood as reaction formations whereby opposing tendencies are exaggerated and vilified. Ego needs its enemies.
Men's Work 