PART 6, TAKING IT TO ANOTHER LEVEL
“THE HUMAN CONDITION”
APRIL 10, 2011. If you’ve stuck with me through this whole series of articles, I commend you. Because what I’m writing about goes very much against the grain. It’s counter to virtually all cultures. I’ve received emails from some quite thoughtful readers, and my appreciation for that runs deep, believe me.
The “human condition” is a phrase that has been worn out to a nub. It used to be employed by art critics celebrating the latest attempt at so-called realism. “Hemingway explores the human condition as few have dared to.”
The phrase refers to eternal struggle, inevitable death, acts of heroism, sacrifice, ignorance in the face of a stark uncaring universe.
The human, according to this doctrine, is forever faced with mounting problems, and no matter how hard he tries to get them off his back, they pile up, and he is ill-equipped to master them. There are no answers. There are only everyday battles against the encroachment of Reality.
In the ultimate irony, humans are riddled with emotions and thoughts that legislate against permanently solving their problems. No matter which way they turn for help, their own foibles bring them to their knees.
Well, the 1960s swept all that away. Instead, there were cosmic rainbows …and drugs.
Somehow, however, that route didn’t pan out.
Now we have a transfigured version of the human condition. It’s called victimhood. Anyone can qualify, if they present (a real or phony) tale about oppression and abuse…and the Great Solver is government.
As always, I return to my basic theme: imagination.
Imagination is capable of alchemical transformation of all the elements that supposedly create the roadblocks of the human condition.
With imagination, you can deploy and/or transcend those elements.
This is, in effect, what the playwright does—whether he knows it or not.
On stage, the most grim drama is one level removed from reality.
The dramatist (again, whether he knows it or not) is outside, looking in. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to write the play.
Some people find this idea extremely offensive. They want the artist to be mired in the same swamp that affects everyone else. They want the artist to reflect what they think of as universal failure.
Perhaps heroic failure, but failure.
Such eternal fans of the human condition are imagining failure all the time. It’s their theme.
Looked at from a different angle, however, there are trillions of possible realities, and failure is only one of them. In other words, planet Earth, for some reason, is getting the short end of the stick, and apparently is dedicated to it.
“So for your next life, you can choose from this trillion-card deck. Which one do you want?”
“I’ll take the place of failure.”
Of course, Earth has its redeeming features. There is this thing, here and there, called FREEDOM. It has a bad name, but there are still a few adherents. And with freedom, you may not get paradise automatically, but at least you aren’t compelled to sign on to puerile rainbows and Brave-New-World-happy-happy android programming. At least, not yet.
You could be an artist, in the widest sense of that word.
You could create without limits.
You could use internal foibles and doubts and transform them into energy sources.
You could give free rein to your imagination. Most people won’t know what you’re doing, which gives you breathing space.
Just one note of caution: if you opt for widespread acceptance of your work as your first priority, what you create, in the long run, will sour you. It’ll turn you old before your time. It’ll make you bitter. You’ll beg for praise and that will be, well, embarrassing.
If, on the other hand, you give the widest possible latitude to imagination, you’ll invent realms that give you more than you ever hoped for.
You’ll discover you have endless energy and power.
The so-called human condition will shrink down to a distant dot on the horizon and disappear entirely.
This is not an option for the weak. This is not an option for those who desire instant gratification on all fronts. This is not an option for those who believe in saluting the flag of the lowest common denominator. This isn’t for those extol the virtues of the group. This is not an option for those who whine that they’re misunderstood.
You need to celebrate being misunderstood. You need to a build a fire out of it to warm you on cold nights. You need to expand your capacity to laugh at androids…
You need anger, too.
Now that’s a stumbling block for a lot of people. They’re been trained like dogs to beg and be nice. They’ve been taught by “spiritual leaders” that anger is a sign of an unevolved human. They’ve surrendered their outrage for pastel colors. They think their own anger will swallow them up and make them gruesome.
This is called PROGRAMMING.
Of course, if you’re not creating, if you’ve deserted your own imagination, then, if you become angry, that’s a whole different situation. You’re not operating from a higher platform. You’re in the swamp and then you’re getting angry. You have nowhere to go AND you’re in a rage. That’s curtains.
ANY emotion can be counter-productive and destructive if you’ve abandoned imagination. That emotion will lead you around in a circle and bring on fatigue and waste.
This is why spiritual systems engender decay. First, you’re trapped in the system, no matter how good it looks. Second, the emotions “inspired” by the teaching are mazes you wander in, and you never find the pot of gold. The emotions are energy-leaks. Finally, you just want to lie down and let “the superior power” take over.
One great use of anger is: it can vault you out of whatever system you’re in, as you realize you bought a lemon…and then, boom, you’re outside the structure…and you can start imagining and creating. IF YOU WILL.
If not, you sink back into the swamp.
You sink back into a sense of acceptance of WHAT EXISTS.
WHAT EXISTS is the big con on the road to what is being sold as the far shore of consciousness and spiritual enlightenment.
“You see, there are realities behind realities, and when you travel this path the ancient sages carefully laid out, you’ll eventually come to the castle which is the ultimate peak of WHAT EXISTS, and there you will find Illumination…”
“There are 573,456,769 layers of reality, and the last one is the ultimate in WHAT EXISTS, and when you arrive there, all questions and doubts will disappear.”
The big con.
WHAT EXISTS is always, in the long run, a scam.
Always. At all levels.
Teachers tell students, “Write what you know.”
Translation: CREATE WHAT ALREADY EXISTS.
“Listen, schmuck, if I write what I know, if I create what exists, then I’m not really creating. Tell you what. You write what you know, you deal with that. I’m walking out the door. I’m out of the system.”
Here is something else to keep in mind: In a culture dedicated, to its last dying breath, to WHAT EXISTS, people are naturally going to be brainwashed down to their underwear by that very theme—so when they approach the notion of imagination and invention and creation, they are going to say, “WHAT SHOULD I IMAGINE? WHAT SHOULD I CREATE? I DON’T UNDERSTAND. IT’S A MYSTERY.”
Of course it’s a mystery, because THEIR HEADS ARE FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH WHAT ALREADY EXISTS.
IT’S THEIR RELIGION.
If you wonder why, in addition to this work, I’ve spent so many years as a reporter going after the medical cartel, it’s because the future of that cartel is all about convincing people they are BASICALLY ill…as part of “the human condition,” as part of WHAT EXISTS…and the only way to manage that situation is to submit to a whole life of treatments, from cradle to grave, with drugs that, as a side effect, deflate and sedate and tranquilize the ability to…
IMAGINE AND CREATE.
JON RAPPOPORT
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