No Lights On
More and more I’m noticing that you can see, with a cursory glance at their face, whether someone has an active brain. You can know right away if they enjoy a level of intellectual awareness which includes, for example, understanding the concept of consciousness. We’re mostly all born with that awareness, which comes umbilical’d to an also-natural propensity to grow and to expand our capabilities, to discover and create, and to hunger for more.
If there is an essential task of parents it is to kindle and grow that mind. But when the parents don’t do their job, if the child shuts part of its consciousness, it’s not likely to be resuscitated; certainly not to its original potential. The regrettable fact is that some people don’t grow this integral part of themselves. For reasons usually found in early childhood, they decide that it is safer, or otherwise better for them, not to reach out, but to withdraw, to cocoon, to hide in a shell.
You can see it in their eyes. The light in them is on a prozac setting. There’s not enough of a spark to represent a fully functional human being. There’s no invitation for engagement. Not even a promise of resistance. These people step out only so far as to have their needs met. They are not interested in participating. They are too frightened, or perhaps they’re over-loaded with life. There faces show little expression, because there’s nothing to express. There is no there there, and no indication that they realize that anything is amiss.
But there is. We are on a planet of limited resources. Every resident has an obligation to contribute to the common weal and to our future; to produce at least as much as they consume. For all of the chaos in modern life, we have in fact elevated our collective consciousness to a point where if we acted in consort, we could create a secure and productive societies worldwide. We know how to meet our temporal needs, once we reduce the population to practical levels. And once such knowledge is implemented, we can move on to the real challenges.
With less than appropriate humility, and too much time on my hands, I have noodled about who should be among the people to stay. No, I’m not recommending an updated version of Pierre Boule’s coliseum, although reality television seems to be moving us in that direction already. Rather, speaking philosophically and in good health, I suggest that if we were serious about the meaning of life, we would not try to sustain the decrepit, we would discourage the ill-equipped from pro-creating, and we would require adherence to the notion of living lightly on the earth. Beyond that, I would encourage the departure of everyone except those people with a sense of obligation to make the world a better place than it was when they came into it.
Not coming to my party would be the people who think that life is for them instead of the other way around. Nor the zombies who refuse to participate in the community. Political comedian Bill Maher made the distinction this way: "The Dalai Lama visited the White House and told the President that he could teach him to find a higher state of consciousness. Then after talking to Bush for a few minutes, he said, ‘You know what? Let's just grab some lunch.’"
The brief if successful splash of "The Celestine Prophecy" hinted at a higher level of consciousness based on a higher human vibrational level. If that be the case, fine, but I don’t know how we get there. I do know, however, that life would be a lot grander if people felt as much a sense of duty as entitlement. If environmentalism was passé concept because we were already living it. If violence was relegated to the history books because conflict resolution is a better deal. If we met strangers on the street with a confident greeting of respect and appreciation.
Such a world may not be imminent, and it’s not going to be delivered to us. We will have to prove both our worthiness, and about ability to live there. So it is important to remind ourselves every now and then of where we might be if we put our heads and hearts and guts together.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.