The Direction of Intention

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“The mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work unless it’s open.”

Sometimes I think we are living in one big episode of Survivor. Nothing is what it seems; everything is a performance intended to drive ratings. As Tom once asked, “What are we pretending to not know?”

Maybe we no longer know we are pretending.

Lora watched a news opinion show and a pundit played multiple examples of political and business leaders using the word “socialism” as a label meant to scare people or brand an opponent. What became clear was that the politicians flinging the phrase around had no idea what socialism is and what it is not. The meaning of the word was irrelevant as long as fear and loathing was the result.

Language is powerful and we play with it like a child who just found the key to daddy’s gun closet.

A few years ago JP was on a chef competition show and was outraged that the producers tried to pit the contestants against each other. “It was ugly,” he said, “they did everything they could to make us hate each other.” “What did you expect?” I asked. “I thought we were there to cook!” he shouted. “Did you think you had to go on television to cook?”

We watch the car race for the crashes, not to see who first crosses the line.

When language is not recognized to have any power it is easy to confuse news with entertainment, substance with diversion. We confuse those things within ourselves, too; what you bring to life gets lost in the pursuit of what you can get. You reasons for doing things get muddled.

In fact, we are witness to what happens: conflict is common in our narrative; entertainment trumps the essential because we have trouble sorting which is which. Conversations happen within communities of thought, not between them. And then we wonder why we are so polarized, so incapable of dealing with the challenges of our time. Take a look inside yourself – are you as divided within yourself as the Democrats and the Republicans? Doesn’t your inner judge sound as rigid as the tea party?

Blame is easy and always makes for good ratings but not much else.

This culture is not happening to us. We create it again and again everyday. I often wonder if the national dialogue drives the internal monologue or vice versa?” We are not as separate as we’d like to believe nor are we as impotent as we like to pretend.

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