Preloaded and no need to download. But – to attain more complete full-being - you will have to activate and learn to listen and act on messages from this source.
ENABLING CULTURES VERSUS CULTURES OF CONFUSION
There are cultures that enable and cultures that confuse. I
have had this realisation before, of course, but I was reminded of it once
again by the nonsense of celebrating a spring festival of renewal (Easter) as
we – in the Southern Hemisphere - go into autumn.
No wonder we are confused! Our minds are dominated by cultural
forms which (may) make sense in Europe but they are
seriously out of kilter where we live.
Modern Western commerce, as is well known by readers of
Marx, aligns with a culture which thrives on our confusion about who we are and
where we fit into life.
Mainstream thinkers are not fashioning the means by which we
can find clarity amongst the incessant spin which comes from right, left and
centre.
Our heads are constantly turning as we try to make some
sense out of it all.
I don’t think this confusion is accidental and part of some
grand life design. Rather, it suits certain interests to have us confused so
they can exploit our life energies.
Modern culture can be seen as both a big control trip and a
means of manipulation.
An enabling culture is one that assists us to connect with
our surroundings.
Examples of these can be found from ‘small-scale’ societies
around the world, as studied by modern anthropologists.
One feature of such enabling cultures is that – through
serious practices which are dismissed by modern thinkers - they seek to inform people at a gut level, so
that group decision-making is both intellectual and visceral.
The role of a finely tuned gut – informed by all manner of
myths, rituals and other practices – has not received much attention in modern
Western intellectual traditions. It tends to employ a notion of ‘mind’ which
coexists with ‘brain’. Cognitive studies have provided some useful insights
into how we operate – but less so when it comes to how we are systematically manipulated
by ‘clever’ others.
And yet we all have a good understanding of the role of ‘gut
feelings’ as a means of providing a means of navigating our way through life.
Ignoring such a source of messages can be at your own peril.
It may be useful to invoke the notion of ‘gut’ as a
shorthand for ‘core of Being’.
Perhaps we store certain levels of important life
information in our guts. I don’t know. Perhaps this sort of information is
‘positional’ rather than that which may be more easily articulated.
The notion of a ‘doctor’ of some kind – located in the gut –
may be usefully borrowed from indigenous sources – as when worms in the stomach
of a wallaby are called ‘doctors’ because they tell the wallaby when to move
on. (Source - W. Nelson Juppurula).
Our gut-centred Doctors tell us when we need to move on, but
how often do we seriously listen to them?
TRANSLATE GUT INTO WORDS AND
ACTIONS
One of the roles of a writer – as a conceptual craftsperson
attempting to put life matters into words as a step toward action – requires a sense of being able to detect
subtle messages from such unlikely sources and to use that ‘feeling’ to inform
what is written.
In an age when we are subjected to all manner of information
from all manner of sources, we must remember to listen to our gut-level
messages. They tend to be well informed.
It goes without saying that, at this time at least, there is
no means for others to make a profit out of our personal gut messages.
For this reason alone, and in order to promote technologically
based services which can reap financial returns for others, we will not be
being subjected to mainstream messages which encourage us to be guided by our
gut instincts.
You do not need technology to be able to better detect your
gut messages. You need a little stillness in your activities – away from
e-communication for a while is good too.
Restoring a degree of sanity to a mad world – rushing
headlong as though momentum alone will be enough to leap the ever growing
yarning abyss of the unfolding disaster – requires us to find spaces in our
lives for long enough to get in touch with better selves.
This may come in small insights which are difficult to hold
for long, let alone sort out the larger problems of how to put them into
practice. It ain’t easy.
And, as we get in touch with our better selves, we feel the need to find ways by which we can
relate with our kindred other-selves.
FOR EXAMPLE – GUT FEELING – POLITICAL PARTIES AND
MAINSTREAM MEDIA GENERATE NOISE
One thing I have noticed in my own life is that I tend to be
dismissive of my own hard-gained insights since they are not those which
resonate with the megabuzz of dominating systems.
I think it best if this megabuzz is recognised as confusing
noise rather than some kind of fundamentally important information relevant to
how we live our lives.
As it is, when we regard these mainstream sources as being
somehow ‘authoritative’ in ways our gut instincts are not, we accept something
which diminishes us.
Here is a gut feeling which I have worked up:
Who cares if Rudd or Gillard or Abbott or Turnbull is Prime Minister –
these people never represent us. They cannot.
They belong to political parties and alliances which
systematically expropriate democracy in order to run with an entirely different
agenda.
The real lesson to be learnt from the ease with which PM
Howard took us into war in Iraq and, more recently, the overthrow of Rudd as
Prime Minister is that the wishes of the wider community in such matters are of
no account. We just make up the numbers – extras in the fantasy of others.
Rather than seeking to restore Kevin Rudd (in order to
preserve our mistaken idea of how democracy works) we should be recognising
that the system, as presently constituted, does not represent us.
Such a realisation is necessary if we are to ever than the
next step which is to move towards discussion (and, later, action) of what
would be required for a system which would represent us.
We need be talking about a system of life governance which
is grounded in our local communities so that, for example – instead of electing members of political
parties – we send representative delegates from our communities to Canberra (or
wherever) and they report back to us for further instructions.
I don’ t hear this kind of reform talk in the mainstream
media. They are, by and large, content to run with party media stunts and their
own ‘normalised’ commentary about a polarised game of political football
between two players.
Noise tends to win out over insights, and the latter are put
to one side to allow the incessant mindless chatter of other scores to fill
vitally important space.
Our hard-won insights are previous embers which are to be
treasured.
One challenge for us-kind is to work on fashioning forms of
representation which enable us as down-to-earth-Beings who can respectfully
relate to our surroundings, secure in the knowledge that – by ensuring the
whole of life is maintained in best possible condition – so too will our form
of life be endlessly reproduced.
That is, not as members of a modern nation-state; not as
those who have a secular understanding of life as found in modern science; not
as members of the present major religions.
Something both old and new is afoot as life seeks a form
fitting for this planet.
Those of us who can learn to listen to our gut-centered messages now need to stop being dominated by voices which insist they – and
they alone – are born to rule. They typically just make a mockery of life.
And we need to fashion new forms of representation which do
real justice to the miracle of life on this planet.
Instead of looking to a Westminster parent and sundry colonial offspring for inspiration, as various forms of global crisis deepen we do well - now - to look
at proven Ways of Being as found among First Peoples.
