Soil erosion, Southfield. Days of dry warm south westerly winds and bare fields provide the ideal conditions for windblown soil erosion. The fine particles of sandy soil become airborne and get into everything. Here by Southfield a plantation of young trees is being sand blasted. (Wikimedia)
I have been musing about how I can reconnect to the despair and outrage at the state of the world I felt when I was a young boy – environmental destruction, societal oppression, religious indoctrination and so on. At the same time, I am also inspired and encouraged by today’s younger generations that bring fresh energy, enthusiasm and vision to champion for a better future through challenging the inhumane and unjust system that serves only the minority of “elites” at the expense of the majority of humanity.
Russell Brand (Wikipedia)
Incidentally, I came across an article by Collective Evolution after my musing just now, and I dare say people like Russell Brand, who enthused in a recent interview video about the world revolution, is doing a good job in bringing more awareness and passion to more people about the need for a world revolution and how we all can be part of it in our own ways.
I also recalled having come across the phrase “rage against the machine” some time ago, and I decided to google it just now, and I learnt from Wikipedia that it is the name of an American rap metal band that was formed in the 1990s. I learnt that the band has composed and sung a number of songs to address injustice and oppression imposed by the political and capitalistic systems. I guess the word “machine” in the name “Rage against the machine” is probably used to allude to the propagandistic machine used by the elite to “brainwash” the masses. I was reading about one of their songs called “Wake Up”, and I noted from Wikipedia that the band’s frontman has been actively addressing inequality and speaking about the need for everyone to unite as one.
At the Big Day Out in Australia 2008, De La Rocha gave a speech discouraging globalism, saying it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. He applauded the crowd for voting out former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, then broke into screams of “Wake Up”.
Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine at Coachella 2007 (Wikipedia)
At the band’s June 8 2010 gig at the O2 in Dublin, Ireland, De La Rocha gave a speech discussing the current economic system and how multinational companies are blaming the middle/working class for the problems that the multinational companies themselves caused. De La Rocha was quoted as saying:
“You know I’ve been getting really frustrated turning on the news recently and listening to all this talk. All this talk about Ireland and all this talk about Portugal and all this talk about Spain and all this talk about Greece. And all they seem to be saying is “Oh the people in Ireland and Spain and Greece and Portugal oh they had it too easy”. And the very companies that run these stations like CNN profited so greatly from the housing bubble and crisis that they created. The very people that created the economic recession are the first to blame to us for the reason that it came about. And I’m sick of them saying this over and over again knowing full well that the reason we have pensions that the reason we have vacations and the reason we have 8 hour work days is precisely because of the kind of actions that our brothers and sisters are taking in Greece right now. People taking to the streets against the wealthy class who have been robbing us all for years. And in the face of all this propaganda I wanna say, we have here to unite here in Europe, we have to unite here in Europe across ethnic lines across religious differences across racial lines and it’s now the lines are clear. It’s us against the wealthy plain and simple. It’s time to wake up. WAKE UP.”
I have come to see that the main problem is the mindset or the system that creates a social divide among people, or as Thich Nhat Hanh put it, “we are here to awake from the illusion of separateness”. As Charles Eisenstein of the Occupy Love movement in the below video also said, “this shift of consciousness that inspires such things is universal, 99% and 1%, and it’s awakening in different people in different ways”.
Here’s sharing an excerpt of my blog in which I was musing about the case of revolution, which I was re-reading in view of the above video about the love revolution.
“Many look at the twentieth century as a time of great economic and technical advance, but history, while recognizing the technical innovation, will condemn this century as the most vile in man’s history. The miracle that began in Greece, expanded in Rome, flourished in the Renaissance & Enlightenment and finally found its modern form in the western liberal democracy has been been gutted by a century of materialism, enslavement, slaughter and greed.”
“I agree with the gist of the message of the above-mentioned article that the best way to counter or overcome the self-serving regime controlled by mega corporations in the long run is “enlightened disengagement”. While protests and occupy movements have their place in creating awareness, the longer term and more permanent solution is within reach of each of us individuals – by consciously and actively making decisions in our daily life to disengage ourselves from the consumerist culture and propaganda and the like as much as we can, and to participate in collaborative and environment-friendly activities, such as reusing, reducing and recycling materials, buying locally produced organic food, spending within our means, seeking our own spiritual paths, and so on.”
Yes, to me, awareness is the first step, and then it involves a conscious decision to disengage ourselves from the system or the mindset of the consumerist culture, and at the same time, to participate in activities that contribute to a more humane world and a more sustainable environment, while spreading awareness through our day-to-day living and sharing of useful resources with others.
“I pray that you allow yourself to wrestle with these questions — about the quality of your love and the depth of your service to humanity”.Dr Cornel West
I learnt from Wikipedia that Cornel West is an American philosopher who is inspired and influenced by Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Ralph Waldo Emerson and other philosophers and civil rights activists. His quote reminds me of Socrates’ quote about living a life worth living by examining ourselves, such as the quality of our love and the depth of our service to humanity. I agree as these resonate with me about living loved and loving others, and as Einstein also said, a life lived in service to others is worth living. It starts with self love that radiates outward to others, and a revelation that we are all one and interconnected.
Yes, what really matters in life is the quality of our love and the depth of our service to humanity. It reminds me of Mother Teresa’s quote “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” I don’t subscribe to the society’s mindset that focuses on accumulating material things and attaining outward achievements and success because these things do not define our identity – they are an illusion that the world is attached to when they have forgotten or do not know their intrinsic worth as human beings. There is an innate dignity in each of us, regardless of what we do for a living. I choose to believe small things done with great love are what really matters in life, and they cannot be measured in any concrete form or economic term because they are priceless and comes from the heart – they may be small acts of kindness, or words of encouragement, or sharing of edifying materials, or simply sending peaceful thoughts to bring about world peace. Yes, as I have learnt, research has shown that when we do nothing and just sit and meditate, we can actually bring about world peace.
“In the early 1980’s practitioners trained in the art of meditation were placed at various trouble spots throughout the Middle East. With clockwork-like precision, each time the practitioners began their meditation which focused on the feeling of peace, crimes against humanity dropped, emergency room visits declined and traffic accidents went down. Statistics reversed each time the meditations ended. This happened with such regularity that those conducting the experiments were able to calculate the minimum number of people meditating on peace, needed to effect a change in a community, or the world. The number is surprisingly small: the square root of 1% of any population.”
I think the economic system as it is today tends to devalue and dehumanise people because it attaches a false value on human beings based on their so-called “net worth” in their businesses and so on. It is sad when those who think they have a lot look down on those who have little because they do not realise they are all one and equal at the very core of their beings. Each of us is equally valuable simply because we are children of the universe. We cannot add or diminish our value by what we do or not do. We are interconnected in a living ecosystem, and each of us has gifts and talents to use to serve one another, and no one is greater or more important than one another, no matter how much we accomplish or how much we have.
Like flowers, we bless and beautify the world with our presence and fragrance when we simply bloom and blossom right where we are.
Even in the natural world, we see trees and beautiful flowers that do not attempt to accomplish great things; they simply grow and blossom where they are, and the whole world benefits just from their presence and fragrance. In the same way, we human beings do not need to try to accomplish great things; just by loving and accepting ourselves for who we really are brings great peace and tranquillity to the world, and whatever we do that comes out of this revelation is only a natural extension of our blessing to others, whether it is in the form of small acts of kindness, or words of encouragement, or sending peaceful thoughts to the world, and so on. This may sound unrealistic to the monetary-based and economically-minded society, but that is how I see life from a holistic and naturalistic perspective.
Nature and Us 