Love, Sex & The Golden Mean
3-30-06 The Classical Way
According to the doctrine of The Golden Mean it is wise to avoid Excess & Defect alike. Stay away from Wealth as much as Poverty, say these wise teachers, for both bring Suffering. According to this ancient view of Classical Antiquity & also of Classical China The Middle Course is The Wise Way. In our culture-----yours & mine-----no such classical doctrine is espoused by the powers that be. "Greed is Good," it was prophesied by The Reaganites back in the ugly eighties. And Newt Gingrich and his fanatical right wing friends have pushed the same sick views on an essentially comatose America. America is pretty much married to its machines-----its cars & its computers & its games. There is no real original blood thinking happening across this perishing Republic that is accessible. I mean there is nothing jolting you & me out of bed every morning with that transcendental Radiance. Is there? It's all up to ourselves to shock ourselves into Wakefulness.
That of course is what The Golden Mean has always been to the Enlightened Mind. To awaken from this nightmare of daily drudgery that drags us down into the dirt to think dirt thoughts and do dirt deeds and, never forget, to pray dirt prayers to the Dirt God to spare us from Suffering & Death. But, according to every Wise Man & Woman I have ever read our master mistake is to believe that having great feasts and tremendous blow-out sexual experences & to roll in money by the millions of dollars & have 2 or 3 Luxury Power automobiles and the same number of 5 million-dollar mansions and all that with them go---to have these advertised experiences is to be Happy Happy Happy and at last home free from the big S-----no more damned Suffering. Because with an incessant supply of luxury goods and huge bank accounts and ten million dollars of cash stuffed in various drawers & cupboards & suitcases ready to meet any emergencies one should be damned well fortified against the outrages of Nature & Civilization & Its Discontents. No, Brothers & Sisters? That of course and work 7 days a week 10 to 15 hours a day to Prove to The Gods that we mean business & do not take the cultural mandate lightly: "Subdue the earth and increase and multiply!"
What a deadly recipe for a totally failed LIFE! For of course everything I have here listed as Pleasure is assigned to the cause of Suffering by the gods & the goddesses. For these are all symptoms of the unsatisfied and never satisfiable Id. And we are full of distortion if we believe that any of these false gods will bring Pleasure. Though we believe it until the very moment Death knocks on our door. We actually live as though these things are true. Especially Duty, if not the attainment of satisfaction by loading up on the best food the best clothing cars computers friends wives & mistresses. Is this not the case? If you aren't all beat out of your head by physical goods & things---food, sex, & money-----then at least you might justify your existence by being a full-time slave to Duty. Oh, Yes, that sells like hot cakes in the local community. These are worker bees or ants. Holy Holy Holy. This is America The Beautiful. And we were built into this mighty Empire by blood sweat and tears. The blood was shed largely by the Indians & the foreign peoples who continue to bleed & die to this day. And the sweat belongs to the backs of the slaves who owe their bodies to The People. Duty, let me see now. How does Duty fit into the Big Picture? O Yes, Duty---that is what my Parents decided was good for me. That is what the priest & the minister & rabbi have decided is for my own good & therefore for the good of that great bugaboo "Society." Amen, then. Better not ask any questions of DUTY. Next thing you know you''ll be questioning the existence of God who Ordained these laws from His mighty citadel in Heaven.
Well, I am truly sorry. But Duty is imposed from without and may get you a sound sleep of 2 to 4 hours every night but it is of no consequence whatsoever to arriving at a state of Being that we might call FREEDOM. For the only way to become Free is to be liberated from the chains that presently hold the prisoner: to wit, following the same old path that the Master Society dictates. And I say this: Everything wrong with the world presently goes back to this insane American drive for THINGS. Emerson wrote 'Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." Never has it been truer than it is today. And the only Revolution that can ever happen begins in the individual human being. And this Revolution will come from an AWAKENING---it is always irresistible. But it also needs stimulus. It needs pressure. It needs to be super conscious of itself in order to be born as the language for example of Hegel so clearly reveals or of Henry David Thoreau. And Thoreau is the clearest of all. Mohandas Gandhi spent a good portion of his rich life in jail cells drinking water and saying & doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Our very greatest political activist---himself not politically inclined in the least though a masterful attorney and speaker in plain Christian Hindu Humanist parables. There must be a simple lesson here. As in the old fairy tales & The Metamorphoses & those wonderful fables. The message is take it easy. Quit ruining your life with stupid work & jabbering at the water fountain. Time to have Real Joy! The kind that doesn't cost money or come from the rules of the church or the state! The Simple Kind.
RLG Copyright, 2006
According to the doctrine of The Golden Mean it is wise to avoid Excess & Defect alike. Stay away from Wealth as much as Poverty, say these wise teachers, for both bring Suffering. According to this ancient view of Classical Antiquity & also of Classical China The Middle Course is The Wise Way. In our culture-----yours & mine-----no such classical doctrine is espoused by the powers that be. "Greed is Good," it was prophesied by The Reaganites back in the ugly eighties. And Newt Gingrich and his fanatical right wing friends have pushed the same sick views on an essentially comatose America. America is pretty much married to its machines-----its cars & its computers & its games. There is no real original blood thinking happening across this perishing Republic that is accessible. I mean there is nothing jolting you & me out of bed every morning with that transcendental Radiance. Is there? It's all up to ourselves to shock ourselves into Wakefulness.
That of course is what The Golden Mean has always been to the Enlightened Mind. To awaken from this nightmare of daily drudgery that drags us down into the dirt to think dirt thoughts and do dirt deeds and, never forget, to pray dirt prayers to the Dirt God to spare us from Suffering & Death. But, according to every Wise Man & Woman I have ever read our master mistake is to believe that having great feasts and tremendous blow-out sexual experences & to roll in money by the millions of dollars & have 2 or 3 Luxury Power automobiles and the same number of 5 million-dollar mansions and all that with them go---to have these advertised experiences is to be Happy Happy Happy and at last home free from the big S-----no more damned Suffering. Because with an incessant supply of luxury goods and huge bank accounts and ten million dollars of cash stuffed in various drawers & cupboards & suitcases ready to meet any emergencies one should be damned well fortified against the outrages of Nature & Civilization & Its Discontents. No, Brothers & Sisters? That of course and work 7 days a week 10 to 15 hours a day to Prove to The Gods that we mean business & do not take the cultural mandate lightly: "Subdue the earth and increase and multiply!"
What a deadly recipe for a totally failed LIFE! For of course everything I have here listed as Pleasure is assigned to the cause of Suffering by the gods & the goddesses. For these are all symptoms of the unsatisfied and never satisfiable Id. And we are full of distortion if we believe that any of these false gods will bring Pleasure. Though we believe it until the very moment Death knocks on our door. We actually live as though these things are true. Especially Duty, if not the attainment of satisfaction by loading up on the best food the best clothing cars computers friends wives & mistresses. Is this not the case? If you aren't all beat out of your head by physical goods & things---food, sex, & money-----then at least you might justify your existence by being a full-time slave to Duty. Oh, Yes, that sells like hot cakes in the local community. These are worker bees or ants. Holy Holy Holy. This is America The Beautiful. And we were built into this mighty Empire by blood sweat and tears. The blood was shed largely by the Indians & the foreign peoples who continue to bleed & die to this day. And the sweat belongs to the backs of the slaves who owe their bodies to The People. Duty, let me see now. How does Duty fit into the Big Picture? O Yes, Duty---that is what my Parents decided was good for me. That is what the priest & the minister & rabbi have decided is for my own good & therefore for the good of that great bugaboo "Society." Amen, then. Better not ask any questions of DUTY. Next thing you know you''ll be questioning the existence of God who Ordained these laws from His mighty citadel in Heaven.
Well, I am truly sorry. But Duty is imposed from without and may get you a sound sleep of 2 to 4 hours every night but it is of no consequence whatsoever to arriving at a state of Being that we might call FREEDOM. For the only way to become Free is to be liberated from the chains that presently hold the prisoner: to wit, following the same old path that the Master Society dictates. And I say this: Everything wrong with the world presently goes back to this insane American drive for THINGS. Emerson wrote 'Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." Never has it been truer than it is today. And the only Revolution that can ever happen begins in the individual human being. And this Revolution will come from an AWAKENING---it is always irresistible. But it also needs stimulus. It needs pressure. It needs to be super conscious of itself in order to be born as the language for example of Hegel so clearly reveals or of Henry David Thoreau. And Thoreau is the clearest of all. Mohandas Gandhi spent a good portion of his rich life in jail cells drinking water and saying & doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Our very greatest political activist---himself not politically inclined in the least though a masterful attorney and speaker in plain Christian Hindu Humanist parables. There must be a simple lesson here. As in the old fairy tales & The Metamorphoses & those wonderful fables. The message is take it easy. Quit ruining your life with stupid work & jabbering at the water fountain. Time to have Real Joy! The kind that doesn't cost money or come from the rules of the church or the state! The Simple Kind.
RLG Copyright, 2006
posted by rlg at 2:22 PM
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