here to change the world

I'm writing this on the night that Michael Jackson died. It's weird even to write a sentence like that, but there it is.

I won't dwell on his death, or even his life, but i thought it important to open with that.

On the way home i heard a song i'd long since banished from my library, Man in the Mirror. It was being played as a kind of homage. As i listened to the song, i momentarily stopped hearing it through the gauze of my adulthood, and suddenly found myself experiencing it with the same intense wonder it had inspired in my youth.

It was a plea for kindness and consideration by a man whose voice seemed to resonate with such earnestness and conviction that i couldn't help feeling compelled to his cause.

This was the moment of my definition. The culmination of all my thoughts about the world and what it meant to be a person. The joining together of disparate inspirations destined for the self-same goal of human salvation through belief in a cause greater than one's own gain.

Every song about those with less, every speech about equality and love, and every moment of comprehension immediately following every painful and hope-shattering event ... they all crystallized into a diamond of guilt and shame for all the things that every person had ever denied another out of greed or pride.

That diamond has rested under my skin - buried inside my soul. It irritates and frustrates me when i ignore it, and makes me feel complete when i obey its desire.

I am man. But what does that even mean? The goals of the masses could be one, but they flounder on the surface of possibility as dying fish will vainly struggle for breath in a fisherman's net.

What are we destined for? Does it matter? Time forces change, but who's to say what that change will be or why?

The firm belief that so many have that a coming apocalypse will forever modify the lives and ways of all of humanity is simply an excuse. They are looking for an external force to act upon the whole of creation in a way that they themselves are unwilling to do.

Give me your sick. Give me your poor. I will give them back to you and say "Do as thou wilt. I am no greater than you."

I want to change the world. I feel something is wrong with it - something that needs to be fixed. A broken bone under the surface of an otherwise normal looking joint. A bone which was never set properly, and aggravates through weakness and pain.

I've considered reaching out to the great minds of the world. Asking for their help and their influence. So many people want more for this world. I feel as if the challenge is not finding the threads, but weaving the tapestry. The question is not how to find those who would make the world a better place, but how to bring them together and give them a common mind.

Jung speaks of a collective unconscious. I posit its extension into the realm of the conscious mind. We are but reflections of our inner selves, and our inner selves are more alike than we could ever guess.

I've decided to spend some time away from my life - a month of silence and solitude. I can't tell you with any great certainty that anything will change in me. I know what i hope to achieve, but it is something that is hard to explain beyond its simplistic veneer. I'm looking to find myself, but that's really not a good way to put it. I guess you'll just have to believe that i think i know what i'm doing. And whether i'm right or wrong, I intend to find out for myself.

The details of my retreat will come out with time, I suppose. There are plenty of folks who already know them, so i'm not quite sure just why i would hide them here. Suffice it to say that's how i feel at the moment, and i'm just kind of going with the flow on this post.

I've become involved in a project of small magnitude but large aspiration. LuAnne and I and 4 others have decided to try to create a moderately sized urban community using existing real estate and resources. Greatly inspired by the considerations of Paolo Soleri, i only regret that I cannot convince him to secure funding for a urban center in Phoenix that might inspire the world.

Our community will grow organically, but we intend it to be a model for life in a manner which does not require the subjugation of one to provide the promotion of another. It will be a place for sharing and life, learning and growth. Edible landscapes, central gathering areas, geothermal resource generation, and consideration for others as part of consideration for self.

It's not here yet, so don't ask for too many details. The community will have a home soon, and will grow from there. The more interest and helpful intention we find around us the better - so please feel free to ask and suggest as you wish.

The butterfly effect may apply here ... who knows? Who knows.

We are here to change the world.

Walden Two and the Rantings of a Self-Made Lunatic

For a long time now you've all heard me mention my hippie commune occasionally and with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Those of you who've known me for a few years know that i didn't start talking about utopias and communal living only after LuAnne and I got married - it's been an idea i've had for a few years that crystallized into an actual dream (as opposed to an undefined fantasy) once I read Walden Two on our honeymoon.

Walden Two is the fictional description of a theoretically plausible utopia which exists by adopting behavioral psychology as a means of sustaining and controlling a modern society.

In other words: It's a great place to live ... you would like it there.

Walden Two essentially offers everyone who lives there everything they would ever need to survive, as well as all the things which we desire to make our lives happy and fulfilling. The only thing that it doesn't do is give us something which all humans seem to crave above all else:

The potential for more.

The potential for more is a pretty powerful thing. I was just talking to one of my friends the other day and asked "Why would you not want to live in this community i've described?" She answered that not having her own car might be an example of how she would be limited living there. Not that she would need to leave to go do something specific, but that she might want to go somewhere. She needed that freedom.

Certainly this is a small example of a larger need. The need to be able to do something different than what is "prescribed" to us is part of what makes us human! Think about the old "better to have loved and lost" adage. Logically, it is better to have never loved at all - you would be more emotionally stable, and if love didn't exist anywhere else in the world you'd never be any worse off for not knowing how it felt.

Remember that i'm just talking "logically" here. Love brings people together, yes, but think of how many it drives apart. It's unstable at best. (wonderful, sure, but unstable)

Now what about money? Why would anyone need such a crazy thing? If we're all doing our part in the community, we should all get our share of life and happiness. No one should ever be thought of as doing more than someone else ... what would be the point? If they're doing what they love and what they're interested in, then why should their job be considered more valuable than someone else's? Take the reverse: if it's a job that no one wants to do, why shouldn't everyone have to do that job a little and move back to what they love?

But here's where it gets sticky, isn't it? I mean, that whole paragraph could be years of unresolvable debate in and of itself. What i'm trying to get to though, is this: If we all got the same, we would all be the same. If we were all the same, then where would be the chance for any one of us to have "the potential for more"?

I've heard this a lot: "I don't want to survive - i want to live." (if you haven't heard that one lately, watch Wall-E)

Does it need to be one or the other? Do we have to have a world where some people have everything and most have little or nothing so that we can have "the potential for more"?

Couldn't we find some way to have "the potential for more" without taking away the ability for everyone to live at or near the same level? Happily? With their basic human needs fulfilled?

I know i can't change the world, but how can i accept it as it is? Does that make me crazy? Possibly.

The Hero Myth

I think we're all waiting for someone to show up and tell us that we're destined for greater things. According to Joseph Campbell, the basic hero myth starts off with the hero longing to do or be something else. But doesn't everyone reach an age or a point in their lives where they wish there were more? Or that they were living an almost entirely different life? Or maybe feel that there is something else they're destined for?
Maybe that's what the hero myth really does: provides us a story that we can relate to, and feel like we get sympathy, compassion, and self-motivation from it. In essence, it's telling us "You're not alone! This happened to someone else! This is that person's story ..."
So where do we find our mentor? Our change agent? Where is our Obi-Wan to lead us from Tatooine? Our Jack Sparrow to bungle us forward? Our coachman to show us death, poverty, and infermity? Our Morpheus to provide us with a red pill? Are we to provide our own impetus for change instead? What about the catalyst which occurs that jars the hero from the grooved path and throws him onto a path of trials and tribulations which will lead him to his destiny? Are we to create that as well? Is that what these stories are for? What happens when there is no mentor? No change? No trials? No destiny?
What happens when the hero has no story?