Monday, October 22, 2012

Our Perception of Pain

What a disservice we do to ourselves when we deny our abilities to change. So many of my loved ones have said "This is simply the way I am." Doesn't that negate the purpose of continued life on earth?  When any organism stops changing, it begins to die. Doesn't denying the human ability to continually evolve deny us our choice to leave more positive energy on earth when we do physically die?

Growth is stressful for all organisms. New life is never created without a struggle that we may experience as "pain." Maybe we need to change our ways of looking at stress. Maybe we need to stop seeing all "pain" as punishment, but as opportunities for discovering new things about ourselves and those around us.

All change is stressful, not only to the individual growing or decaying organism, but to the whole system surrounding it. Notice how the seed splits as the seedling emerges, and how the earth heaves as the seeding breaks the surface.

If we want to see the soul-deadening results of holding fast to our old selves, we need to look no farther that our sports stars and other entertainers. We pay them great sums of money to continue to inhabit empty shells of pasted on personae, so that we can live our old selves over and over through them. Meanwhile, they become caricatures of who we want to see.

Some of my favorite portraits have always been those of very old people. I attempt to to read their life stories in the lines of their faces and knots in their gnarled hands. This scares many as evidence of the decaying process; I see it as the turning of their energies into new life energy for the universe. Some of the most delightful stories I've heard have been long-past memories of Alzheimer's patients, whose minds have gone back to play with their childhood families and friends.

It seems to me that the problem facing our society is that we don't properly prepare ourselves for our own evolution and that of those people and systems around us. Too much growth, too soon can cause a weakened person, plant, and system of support. In today's seemingly chaotic times of super-charged evolution, our choices seem to be global synthesis and synergy of all, or annihilation of the earth.

Will only the earth's raw (God force?) energy remain? Will all go back to the parts of The Divine Spirit that was before the Big Bang. Will those who produced no positive energy in their lifetimes simply become as the black holes in the universe?

I don't know the answers, but I hope to die continuing to grow and bond with others in positive power.