I was in a conflict of self interest.
I didn’t even really want to travel around Australia. I was afraid of what I was going to learn.
I was happy in my bubble of ignorance. I was happy BEFORE the blasted trip.
That old adage ‘ignorance is bliss’ is absolutely true.
A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance. ~Anatole France
And yet… and yet…
I also knew that I couldn’t keep my head in the sand forever. There had to come a time when even my love of ignorance had to give way to my conscience.
(What is a conscience anyway? And why do we have it? If you know why, use the comments.)
And now, the flood gates have opened. (Have a look here for an On The Road story, while it was happening)
In short, I have become unhappy and realized, as a matter of course, that my knowledge is painfully limited and I have absolutely no chance of understanding anything and I may as well go back to studying my navel. At least then I was relatively fit and my skin looked good, whereas now I have a ‘lounge chair produce paunch’ and I look pasty.
What good is the use of study exactly???
So, after that little complain (and this blog allows me to rant and rave VERY freely), I will get to the point.
The summary of what happened on the trip –
1 - I became aware of the insurmountable mountain of injustice perpetrated against the Indigenous peoples of Australia.
2 - I became aware that although I didn’t consider myself responsible for what had happened, I was indirectly responsible for the continued racism I have heard because I remained silent.
I am indirectly responsible for the continued racism I have witnessed in real life experience and on the media because I have either ignored it, or considered it ‘some one else’s problem’.
3 - I became aware that if I was going to put my money where my mouth is, then I would have to live, in action, the yoga that I preached. (Yoga meaning unity – if we think about that a little bit, coming together, being ‘one’, then I need to admit that ‘them’ needs the same consideration as ‘me’. In which case, er, I’d better pull my socks up and learn a little bit about ‘them’.
4 - I became aware that Albert (my partner) also believes in these things, just from the opposite end of the spectrum. I was focusing on my breathe, and he was looking at the United Nations. (The idea of unity and oneness – which means, of course, quite a lot of policy writing….)
Albert and I talked A LOT about what we wanted to achieve, and we came up with a project that I’ve been working on pretty much non-stop since.
Now, the reason I’m writing here now, is because I’m coming up against quite a few problems.
The Idealist
One of the problems is that I have to admit that I am an idealist. That I have an idea that I project onto the ‘reality’ – and as long as I do that, I can not move forward.
So I have to, and I’m finding it a mixture of freedom and horror of the vulnerability I am exposing, let go of ideas I have had.
I have to open up my mind to a different world. And even though my brain is expanding, I can feel my emotional self feeling a little horrified to what I have let in.
Idealism is a protective barrier to the ‘fear and greed’ (Thank you Pedro for clarity when I needed it - from Historum) sea-saw that seems to drive us.
To admit to the selfishness, the lies, the deceit, the ego, the atrocities committed in the name of some ‘Ideal’ – to see the same REALITIES in our own hearts, to realize that actually, and sorry to state it, but WE are the very thing we are fighting, is, for me, heart shattering.
I’m stunned at what I’m looking at.
Unity?
This is just a continuation of the above problem. Do you have any idea how many humanitarian, environmental and social organizations there are out there?
Do you have any idea how the egos of these little and big corporations get in the way of helping the very people they are all sworn to help.?
Its just amazing. So, I’ve come full circle.
The way to help the world enter into the future (assuming we all want to live), is by becoming aware of the very faults in the society we point at, and realize that we are ALL capable of it. That its our own greed that we are looking at. And the only way to fix it is by pointing the finger at ourselves.
When we live the kind of life that we WISH the politicians would,
when we settle disputes without violence and bully tactics, as we wish the politicians to do,
when we make the informed choices on consumer products that we wish the governments would,
when we give of our time and money to those who need it more than ourselves as we hope the government will,
then, quite naturally, and almost magically, the world will be able to face the challenges we have today.
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