Thursday, April 29, 2010

Solidarity, Part 2: Fun With Personal Pronouns

I'm thinking of YOU. While I am sure the concept of solidarity is associated more with a sense of belonging to a particular group, I am using it in reference to my belonging to THE group: YOU. It is the one group we all belong to yet still can't seem to remember it. Now if you noticed I described this one group as YOU and not US, bonus points for you. WE are all members of this group but it is all too easy for the group to become YOU. THEY? Ok, that exhausts our supply of personal pronouns. Let's re-center with the last words I left you with in Solidarity, Part 1:

"The fundamental delusion of humanity is to assume that I am here and you are out there." Yasutani Roshi

Zen masters such as Roshi use the word 'mindfulness'. This word better serves this essay and any hope I have of achieving lucidity than the term 'meditation'. The wizards of popular culture and the ministers of propaganda have reduced this concept to a caricature as it does so many other useful concepts. Alas, these tiny broadcasts are subatomic particles compared to the work of those machines. Thus, while at this very moment, I may be somewhat mindful of you, all or any of you, the owners of the means of production and the satellites are rendering the very same concept as a Coke commercial. After all, they can actually show you a convincing image of the rest of the world on those flat-screens of yours. I guess I can't.

No comments:

Post a Comment