Corporate jobs, career jobs, get-rich quick jobs, scam jobs, temp jobs, freelance jobs, work from home jobs…. where is the sanity. Going through the process is something that almost immediately induces depression. I recently read an article that highlighted just how medicated a society we have become. Depressed? Here’s a pill. Overweight? Take this. Back problems, relationship problems, trouble sleeping, addicted to gambling, addicted to video games, addicted to sex? Here’s some medicine. Yes there are some side effects, but we have medicines for those as well.
Isn’t there some point where we take note of all the symptoms, the by products of how we are living, of how we see this world, and ourselves in it and how those views are melded, and realize that these are symptoms of our collective and metaphorical death? I would define this as an epidemic that convinces us to let the world define us and impairs our ability, our right, to define ourselves in this world.
At what point do we recognize that it is not any single component in our lives that creates the imbalance, but rather the integrated whole? These symptoms seem to call for a need to re-examine the whole organism, our lifestyle, our rhythms, our goals and dreams as well as our responsibilities and needs, and find the balance.
I don’t want to find the most efficient way to fit in and get by with my life. There is an idealist facet of my personality or perhaps a core in my spirit that throbs like the beat of my heart, telling me that life is about much more than the bill of fare we are expected to consume from generation to generation. And if I choose to ignore this, if I turn my ear away from my heart’s voice then what am I to expect from life. I become nothing more than a battery used to propel the economy. Even if I reap the financial rewards of “plugging in” I place meaning and connection in my life on such a superficial level that it almost ceases to exist. And this seems to mirror what a lot of people feel in this world today, isolation, fragmentation, an absence of meaning and connection.
Why write this? Because I know that there’s got to be a better way and I know that this idea is shared by many of you out there. So, write to me, leave a comment, ask a question or share your experiences. I have long held that the change that I know so many people seek is more about people coming together in this pursuit than in one individual finding a panacea.
4 Comments
May 29, 2008 at 12:33 am
What is a Metaphorical Death, i have seen this elsewhere
May 29, 2008 at 5:55 am
I’m sure that these words have been put together before, and I’m pretty sure too that the meanings could be many. I see it as a shift from the pursuit of individuality to a resignation that lets the world define the individual. The growing pressures and responsibilities that begin to numb us to our dreams, put a negative connotation on the label “idealistic – the pursuit of our truth and an expression of our heart’s voice, and find the most efficient way to “fit in”.
Do you recall where or in what context you’ve seen it before?
Thanks for reading my post Kevin.
Noah
May 29, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Greetings! If I may be so bold as to say “CONGRATULATIONS!!!” for stepping outside of the box and refusing to allow the Liberty of your life to be sucked from you by others any longer. Following that voice inside your own own heart, will lead you to Sovereignty.
Very Insightful of you to glean that many of us are the walking dead already. Dead to any meaning of life beyond appearances and superficiality, giving value to meaningless rituals and ceremonies. So empty of anything of substance on the inside that pursuing placebos of security and worth become paramount…the rat race.
Gee…the winner of the rat race will STILL be a rat.
I’m not a rat and I don’t think you are, either.
May 30, 2008 at 5:38 am
Sue Ann: Thank you for your positive words and affirmation. From the time of my earliest epiphanies, there has been a developing “idea” (as the root of idealistic) of a different world and way to understand and nurture our relationships to it that comes from a place inside that I have too much faith in to simply write off as a day dream. It is something that I feel a duty to move towards with my life and to pass on to my child. As I am sure you can understand from reading some posts on your blog, this is both a blessing and a onus. For at times I feel so far removed from living, embodying and inspiring this “way”. But I realize that the only way to move this idea beyond simply an intuition and a hope into a development, is to share this energy, because it is not something that any one person will create beyond their own personal illusion of reality. It is something that will, and must be created by people coming together to develop a new sense of perceiving the world. Independence has taken us very far, in some astounding ways both positive and otherwise, but my ideas are rooted in a belief in inter-dependence from the macro to the micro levels.
Many of my thoughts and theories are inspired by the intersections of science and spirituality so I was struck by your mention of quantum physics. I truly appreciate our new mutually shared awareness of each other and look forward to seeing what comes from here.
Again, I send you many thanks for your words and your energy. I wish you the best and hold strong to the common thread that clearly aligns us and, I hope many others, to move towards the positive change that exists in many of our hearts.
P.S. I appreciate also that you don’t think me to be a rat
Be well and I look forward to what lies ahead