garry’s subposthaven

Whenever strangers at Burning Man briefly chat and then part ways, they bid each other farewell by brightly saying, "Enjoy your burn!" It occurred to me—as I thought about the desert dust that was the only thing here before this week started, and will be the only thing here when we've left—life is really just a burn writ large. We emerge from nothingness. We join together to create beautiful, temporary relationships, full of kindness and joy and love. And then we disappear again. Dust to dust. I grant you it's not a Nobel-worthy revelation. But it's mine and it meant something to me at the time.

-- Seth Stevenson on slate.com

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes

-- General Smedley D. Butler via wikipedia.org

It is said that the ills of society are always expressed through its weakest links.  If this man is a particularly weak link, what social ills did he express?  Well, rage for one, alienation, a shortcut to infamy because the path to legitimate fame is downright difficult—topics familiar to all of us because they are a part of our psyche, and make up a huge part of our entertainment culture.  What other ills?  How about a society that has connected guns to freedom? That thinks the unlimited accumulation of weaponry is somehow good for us, ignoring all data to the contrary, as well as the irrefutable fact that some of that weaponry is going to fall into the hands of weak links?  How about a society where the polarization of wealth is increasing, and the system seems rigged for the rich, where compromise for the greater good is gone, and gridlock reigns as political policy?  How about a society where cunning masterminds are folk heroes, minds are disconnected from heartfelt bodies, and life and death are like a video game? 

via KEN WILBER