We conquer nature, we augment our power and wealth, we multiply the means of distracting our attention this way and that…but the despair burrows in deeper and grows fatter; it feeds on our secret sense of having failed the potentialities of human being….Out of despair, they grow burdened with moral embarrassment for themselves, until they must at last despise and crucify the good which they are helpless to achieve. And that is the final measure of damnation: to hate the good precisely because we know it is good and know that its beauty calls our whole being into question. Theodore Roszak
From the moment our memory offers us a glimpse into our origin story until now, we have likely navigated life with the unquestioned assumption that we must assert control over our environment in order to achieve any measure of happiness. This is the kingdom in which we live – to establish and maintain control – so that we may, on-demand, summon the experiences to which we believe we are entitled: pleasure, popularity, prosperity, protection, and the progressive preservation of this presuppositional power.
The inescapable outcome of such hubris, whether individual or collective, leads not to happiness – but variegated forms of its opposite.
It is impossible to control everything, especially when our peers seek the same, and so once enough trial and error confirm this, we despair. In dismay we double down our resolve – knowing of no other way to press on – and inexorably resort to manipulation, deceit, and varying degrees of force ranging from passive aggression to wholesale violence.
And yet, if we ever become still enough to listen to the depths of our own souls, we would hear a gentle voice from within crying out there is another way. There is an alternative kingdom in which you can live.
The beauty of this voice and the magnitude of its truth call our whole being into question. We are faced with either hating this challenger of all we have become and labeling it a siren, lashing ourselves to the mast of control, or abandoning ship and succumb to the call.
In this kingdom to which this voice calls us – this alternative mode of reality – the currency of control has no power to purchase happiness. In fact, quite the opposite is true.
Today we will explore the sound of this voice from within and the kingdom to which it calls us – where the currency of control is worthless – to ascertain if it is siren… or Savior.
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Quotes
Impoverishment is a teacher, unique in its capacity to renew and that its yield, when it ends, is a passionate openness that in turn reinvests the world with meaning. An intensity of awareness is impoverishment’s aftermath and blessing. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg