This is my Thanksgiving break, writing break, yes that is right, I’m taking a break from my usual writings to address something that is down right bothering me. As people give thanks for freedom this Thursday people across this nation are being put into jail, for simply gathering. Albeit they might just be a little disruptive, but shit I can be disruptive at times. What scares me as I have watched the last 10 years roll by, the average person has become complacent, lethargic, and most of all un- inquisitive. Personally as I read over the Patriot Act I was scared, I was scared because the visions of what was written in those pages, are the very things I am seeing today. I felt helpless as then as I do now. What the hell I am supposed to do. In many rights I am the animal caught in the headlights of the democratizing, Pseudo-liberating, capitalistic panzer tank, and it seems to me that everyone is applauding it, and cheering it on. God forbid you loose any of the materialistic non-sense you call yours, because after all it is theirs. What do you actually own? Please take a quick inventory on what you own, and how much you really paid for that rust bucket you call transportation, or that house that the bank owns and you have to pay for when it begins to become a shack and you call yours, but in the end is not. And why is it not yours? Because they could take it at any time, any time. But really what they own is you. Because, you put so much time and effort into your ego, and what that means, there is no way you could skip out on that job, for that job is you. That house is you; you are your stuff.
This is the metaphysical leap that we are more than willing to take. I’ll pay seventy dollars for a pair of jeans that appear to be worn by a construction worker all summer. Why? It’s that the pants have more value and meaning when you buy them at the store? How can that be? I will admit that for the most part you get what you pay for, for instance some things last longer than others, so it’s not just the Metaphysical assumptions, sometimes the metaphysical assumptions arise out of authentic causes. However, they are formed for the most part out of what you were told as a child. What things mean, and how they define you.
I’m hoping that this current movement moves us away from out ward expression of who we are to an inward movement as to who we are. Who are you to yourself, and what does that mean. For a house, car, i-pod, i-mac, or any of the above will not make you a better person. Everything you own is not a reflection of who you are. Being is something that you do on the inside, and reflect that to those who are around you. However, in this current state of affairs it’s the type of glasses, or Nikes you wear that make you who you are. They are no longer a reflection of who you are on the inside, but somehow while owning these items it is now internalized. This could be called the reverse Metaphysical leap.
The reverse Metaphysical leap is that something can make you something you are not. A house, good job, and children are the things that make you who you are, and without them you are undefined. Ponder that for a second, what do you own that defines you, that without you’d have no idea as to who you truly are. Religion is another point of interest. I am referring the idea of something larger that you are apart of. Without it who are you? If the answer is nothing there needs to be a great deal of soul searching I’d say.
The bottom line is simply this: be who you are on the inside, and worry not about the outside. Too much emphasis has been placed on the outward appraisals of who we are, so much to the point that I think a great deal of us has lost who we truly are, and have replaced it with clothing, and titles. I don’t have the answers as to how to fix this situation. I just want to point at it, and hope that you look at it with deep concern. For what is at stake is you for Christ’s sake.
