Ok so I had a revelation the other day. My boyfriend said that school isn't for him, that he has street smarts instead. I chuckled and said "You don't have street smarts! You try to go down dark allies and you almost got beat up by a bum for talking to him!" (long story) I stated that people would also call that common sense and then I also noted how my professor is from the east coast and always talks about how driven a New Yorker is when they walk down the street. They don't smile they don't wave they have their eyes on the prize and god help anything that gets in their way and tries to deter them. They also don't make eye contact. Then I halted and thought..... because fear is their life..... Instantly I flashed back to the time in my life when I was obessed with RENT the musical and knew every word line for line. In one of the scenes an AIDS support group is talking and the head of the group tells a member not to fear, to be brave. and the gentleman replies "I'm a New Yorker, FEAR IS MY LIFE". Then I had another flashback to the time in my Opera Seminar class when I had to watch the ENTIRE Ring cycle by Wagner and I remembered Siegfried and how he was constantly pointing out that he had no fear, he was brave, nothing could stop him. Until he found a woman/love then he learned fear, he feared how she made him feel and how he feared for her. I just thought he was stupid at the time and that's how he's portrayed many times kind of as a childish, illogical, musclehead. Then I remembered all those times people criticized me for being too sensitive or gullible, too childlike maybe.
Fear is a learned behavior from reactions. We learn not to touch the hot stove because we or someone has been burned. We learn not to talk to strangers, not to lookpeople in the eye, not to go down dark allies, to not trust others etc.... because we've been burned far too many times. But a child, a child doesn't fear because a child hasn't learned. A child is pure, unafraid.
Then I recalled in Paramahansa's book Autobiography of a Yogi how he would describe other Yogi's and Saints as childlike, pure, in God realization, joyful about the simplest things.
Unfortunately in our world, particularly the western world, you are ridiculed if you maintain this way of being. People call you immature, gullible, insane, a space case, a hippie, unmotivated, stupid, lacking common sense. Also our society has not been made for this kind of person, this kind of person cannot suceed in this society.
I think of animals also and how we build into their habitats or try to force them to be more like us, but they're just not. They are like the children, like saints and Yogis, like Native Americans were, and tribe people. They see themselves as belonging to the earth not the other way around.
It is unfortunate that we cannot be as we are sometimes, that we have to fit the mold, be aggressive, be some one, choose a path, sink or swim. There's a good and bad to both I guess, the Wagner Hero vs. The fearful yet driven New Yorker. Sometimes I worry though about where the world is going. Employers want machines not free thinkers. Tech degrees are on the rise while liberal arts degrees fall. We want instant gratification. We want power. We consume far more then we should. We are always connected yet so isolated. We ask someone "How's it going" but even if it's not going well we are expected to say fine. To not show weakness. And even if things were going fine most people don't really want to know how it is going. So why ask? To look like you care I guess. To be cordial. (Myself included) Humans are the number one parasites on the planet, the number one predators, so we should also be the conservers. We should be fair, intellegent, patient, empathetic. (again my self included). Ok so I've gone kind of off topic it's time to end this entry. Bye. :)
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