Exceptionally important reading. It is at once so simple yet so complex. For all our advancement we still fight as the ancients do because of fear mostly, and arrogance.
Yes! Something I’ve been grappling with lately is whether we can have an Us with no need for a Them if we don’t get rid of Fear.
I can see how pure evil is generally a myth, and how we see the devil in our sisters in law when they don’t deserve it all the time.
And many of the characteristics and emotions and behaviors that we identify as Wrong in others are just our own repressed shadow. We can integrate that shadow, love ourselves, and therefore love our neighbors…
But Fear seems different. Acting out Fear seems to always put us outside the network of life, working against it. And Paul Selig’s guides say, “The action of fear is to claim more fear.” And Charles says in TMBWOHKIP that Fear might be the signal from our evolutionarily derived sense of ecological preservation, something we shouldn’t push through for more growth.
So isn’t Fear a shadow that has no corresponding light? Isn’t Fear evil?
To have an Us that requires no Them, wouldn’t we need a Love that is unhindered by Fear?
The entire geopolitical system and the rule of the few ultra-rich over the many is dependant upon the "US vs THEM" mentality, fear mongering, hate mongering and seeing "the other" (religion or ethnicity) as the evil scary monster enemy ("but don't you worry, we the patriotic billionaires, are here to protect you from these scary monstrous evil people over there who want to hurt you, becasue we really really love you and care about you. Just make sure you keep voting for us and put us in a position to transfer society's wealth upwards to the super-rich and we'll provide you with the protection you need from those evil monstrous scary enemies over there who are coming to hurt you").
This profound essay (which in my view is a must read for every human on the planet) shows in detail exactly how this trick is repeatedly used by the corporate-capitalist billionaire ruling class and their narrative managers (in legacy media and social media) to keep humanity in a constant God-ignorant state of religious/nationalist/tribalist division, fear and hatred, the state of US vs THEM, in order to maintain their control over us (how exactly does such a state ensures the rule and control of the corporate-capitalist billionaire class over us is explained in detail in the essay) https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies
There is good and bad in everyone. To deny our own bad, we reify it in others, deluding ourselves that we have purified ourselves of bad. This is complicated by the fact that there are some people in whom the expression of bad is more prominent, even to the point that the good is almost invisible. But this doesn't deny the reality that good and bad exists inside everyone, to varying degrees. The question is how we can elicit more good and less bad, or at least keep the bad on a leash. It starts with trying to accept the bad in ourselves, and cultivating and nourishing the good, watering it regularly with loving drops of reverence.
Well said. I find it harder to forgive the 'bad' in myself than I do in others. We are not only primed instinctively to judge but 'civilised' society inculcates us to judgementalism. Therein lies the first stumbling block... I love your image of leashing and watering. I may use that when I'm beating myself up next time 🐱
You have been saying this for as long as I’ve known you but I do not think ever so succinctly, piercingly or with such urgency. Your current vantage lends extra weight to this sacred call to action. It starts at home. It starts with our neighbors. It starts in small local races for modest public offices. Thank you for continually calling in the better angels of our nature. 🙏
In the tarot, the Ryder Waite deck and similar, the humans are chained to the devil. But the chains are loose! All they have to do is lift them over their heads and they are free!
Thank you, Charles, for your courage and clarity. Our whole ecosystem shines with an intraconnected life essence. Our personal contribution comes when we choose life-affirming behaviours. Easy to say!
I just completed a three day practice of catching myself (when I was consciously aware), each time a biased, judgmental, prejudicial, or mean thought arose. And then sat with it to see what in me needed to be let go, to at least find a neutral place. It was the most daunting and difficult practice of my 76 years and brought me to my knees with humility. I have come to realize it must continue to be my daily and diligent work for the rest of my days. Your words deeply enforced why and gave me the essential motivation to do so. In deep gratitude……..
I have started a practice of stopping looking listening and using people’s names .. I’m pretty bad at it. Trying to shift away from being a tool in the system .. our interactions with each other are key. I’ve always wanted to make a tshirt which says us =them. Anyway. Living and learning best we can do.
What a beauty-filled practice! Having recently done a (truncated version of) Vision Quest out on the land overnight, I am acutely aware of what the mind can do if it is left unchecked with habitual thinking...It is indeed, a humbling experience to face oneself in this way 🧡
In dealing with this present crisis of humanity, one I would distill down to a crisis of trust and intuition, I find myself spiraling between your words to not turn away and those of retreat offered by the recent writings of Paul Kingsnorth. Thanks for being a Human Being Charles :) I wish for the words you’ve written to become embodied by those who’ve read/heard them and to resonate widely.
It comes down to speaking a new language of unity, rather than division (us vs them) in as many ways as we possibly can. To paint pictures of a world where we are able to sit at table where someone disagrees with us and yet we can still have a meal together. What does a compassionate, healthy population look like?
I've upvoted your comment for its focused intentions. However, as a crappy job holder that was trained by a lifer salesperson I well recall being taught on the sales floor the lessons of what is known in sales (check with playwright David Mamet for illustration via his long-running play Glengarry Glen Ross also adapted to movie screen and cable tv streaming tube) as "The Presumptive Close." That technique and widespread practice of influence peddlers of all varieties fits your utopian mystical formulation to a tee and word for word in your superb journalistic lede (where it also applies in a positive rather than cynical way).
Oh, a more concise and illuminating illustration of my own trepidation with your choice of words and presumed intentions is this short explanation by screenwriter, playwright, director and rapping performer who shot much of his first film in Oakland (where I happened to call home after being priced out of Berkeley during gentrification): Here is Boots Riley summing up his creative strategy on sales from additional perspectives:
Thank you! Refraining from "othering" is a daily practice for me and I emphasize "practice" because every day, I fail. I recognize myself too well in your lines: "Did I tell you what my sister-in-law did? Can you believe it? Wasn’t that inexcusable. You and I wouldn’t do such a thing." The impulse to be 'good', the desire to be a force for goodness in the world, is great. But so often it is paired with an impulse to carve the world into 'good' and 'bad' and as you point out, that leads down a dangerous path.
We have to let go at every opportunity of our self regard whilst nurturing ourselves and seeking to do better without judgements. It all applies best if we do not see ourselves as separate from others .. we inter are as per TNH. We interbe. Your pain is my pain.
It all begins when we identify as an us and a them. Self referential thinking. When we realize that this default premise is a ruse, and that in reality we are all interconnected, we are all part of one being, that we are all sacred just as the universe around us is sacred, we begin to shift human consciousness to a higher level of evolution.
Each of us has a different path (manual) to follow. Each of us has an inner and outer spirit of guidance. Set your intention each morning and be relentless. The journey you are on is the greatest act of love that you can offer your self and the world. Place your energy on non-attachment to thoughts, and taming your mind. This is a common teaching of all of the wisdom traditions. Choose carefully what your mind consumes and remove people and content which does not resonate with your intuition. Choose to live a pure life in each moment. It is the expansion of our inner silence, rather than our thinking mind that offers the wisest intuition. People, podcasts, youtubes, social media posts and your own intuition will spontaneously and effortlessly guide you more and more. You will find your own path, your deepest truth from your own direct experience. If you are uncertain, choose the path of humility and patience. You will know by choosing that which resonates within.
In my bass lesson just this morning my student and I talked about the in-out group dynamic about why people conform and act against self-interest, touching on so much of what Charles has spoken about here. Another "coincidence" showing that I am as ever aligned with how he sees the world - this commonality that exists without intent, practice or plan - as do so many others, but I wish there were so many more.
I also believe fully in the power of the individual to effect change wherever they hold the most power in our often viewed as, 'insignificant' lives, (even in the family home is enough).
I speak about this to my students, my friends, in my poetry and songs, I talk about empowerment and balance when I do shows and chatter between songs, sowing seeds to help shape ideas in what later might take form as random thought in those who may've shared those moments.
I understand the power I have and that we all have to contribute, without giving up our 'normal' lives, connections and livelihoods, without need to become some sort of dissident or radical activist.
The key terms are ACT and ACTIVE. We all hold the power to act in a small ways to contribute towards bringing about the world we want to see - (I wrote a song about it lol)
My inspiration comes from those that care. My hope comes from those that talk about the why they care, my motivation away from despair is influenced by listening to the words of those that act, like Charles to share thoughts about how they view the actions and patterns emerging in societies across the world.
This is the taking action I mean - one that helps us to cope with the pessimism and despair or anger and acts of violence seen everywhere around us all.
This is the kind of act that matters. Really matters.
Thanks for those actions taken by everyone who speaks up. Thanks Charles
What does it matter the colour of skin, ethnic race or religion? Why has the label become more important than simple character of being? We are all of the human race. What we do to one another is not determined by labels. It is determined by character.
“Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it’s only us.” ~ William Golding (1911-1993), “Lord of the Flies”
I learned an important lesson being in Patsy's social media cult last summer: men are the current scapegoats in this society. Never have I seen such rabid behavior, most of it from women screeching "what's it like to be you" and parroting a lot of this same line of thought from Charles. So yes, it begins with us. Sure hope Chuck's groupies get the memo. Are you listening Dielle?
Charles' writing about Toxic Masculinity vs. Tonic Masculinity is downright embarrassing in its feminism-inspired saccharine infantilism. It's like Ayn Rand's nonsensical philosophy turned inside out: Rand ceaselessly sentimentalized and romanticized all things masculine (or what she deemed masculinity to be), and Eisenstein does the same thing with all things feminine.
I have not heard that term “tonic masculinity”. I guess it makes sense to try to counter the idea of “toxic masculinity”, but I think in light of a lot of what goes on in his circles it might make more sense for him to try to address toxic femininity, although I suspect he’d lose a large chunk of his fan base and the income generated therefrom. But hey, gift economy and all that, so he doesn’t care about the money.
Important work. Yet I do want to add that it is not about the devil. There is something deeper to the split between good and evil, order and chaos, life and death. A sort of self-deception within humanity. Where we do not see the world for what it is. It is the entire idea of sin and virtue itself, next to scapegoat and redeemer that creates the split, which leads to everything we see. Though this split is an illusion, that leads people to act out of ignorance and self-deception. Not seeing things as they are. One can talk all about love and compassion and have people try to strive for these virtues as an external thing, but that in itself creates by necessity sin. It is what the Jungians call the scapegoat complex. I have worked through this for a long time as former scapegoat.
Anything like love, compassion and kindness are not acts but states of being. Same as anything else. So we can not make ourselves or others kind or loving. In the sense of striving or doing. Making it happen. The fact is that we are both the scapegoat and the redeemer. We are the ones carrying all the pain of our trauma's. Yet also carry this inner state of wholeness and healing. It is through knowing our own pain, that we can truly cultivate true compassion. Yet even then people should be helped to realise their own inner redeemer. The only way to do this is not by avoiding our own suffering, but to feel through it, nurture the fragmented parts within. Through this process comes healing, transformation and with it wholeness and deeper and deeper states of true non-duality.
Whilst these writings are important to have people reflect on these things. I do want to note that we are like a single raindrop reflecting all the other raindrops in the spiderweb of life. So in that way if we are still mostly unconscious and not yet moved past the state of eternal eclipse, we similarly become internally a reflection of the world, as much as the world is a reflection of us, and all that dwell in it. Similarly our culture is a reflection of the internal state of being of it's people. Many are placing all that represents goodness, and even badness, but overall, completeness, outside of themselves. Having emptied themselves of everything that they are. They have become like a friend of mine put in simple terms an empty bookshelf. No wonder many feel empty and we live divided.
Exceptionally important reading. It is at once so simple yet so complex. For all our advancement we still fight as the ancients do because of fear mostly, and arrogance.
Yes! Something I’ve been grappling with lately is whether we can have an Us with no need for a Them if we don’t get rid of Fear.
I can see how pure evil is generally a myth, and how we see the devil in our sisters in law when they don’t deserve it all the time.
And many of the characteristics and emotions and behaviors that we identify as Wrong in others are just our own repressed shadow. We can integrate that shadow, love ourselves, and therefore love our neighbors…
But Fear seems different. Acting out Fear seems to always put us outside the network of life, working against it. And Paul Selig’s guides say, “The action of fear is to claim more fear.” And Charles says in TMBWOHKIP that Fear might be the signal from our evolutionarily derived sense of ecological preservation, something we shouldn’t push through for more growth.
So isn’t Fear a shadow that has no corresponding light? Isn’t Fear evil?
To have an Us that requires no Them, wouldn’t we need a Love that is unhindered by Fear?
Love trumps fear. (no pun intended)
Comes down to our concept of time, in my view. If we’d accept that this is all that is happening, there would be no past or future to get lost in.
Presence is the name of the game.
This is it. All is now. Look to the side. See who needs help.
Time is an illusion. So is us or them. It’s language, that’s what it is. Doesn’t make it any less ‘true’, I guess.
Time to wake up.
The entire geopolitical system and the rule of the few ultra-rich over the many is dependant upon the "US vs THEM" mentality, fear mongering, hate mongering and seeing "the other" (religion or ethnicity) as the evil scary monster enemy ("but don't you worry, we the patriotic billionaires, are here to protect you from these scary monstrous evil people over there who want to hurt you, becasue we really really love you and care about you. Just make sure you keep voting for us and put us in a position to transfer society's wealth upwards to the super-rich and we'll provide you with the protection you need from those evil monstrous scary enemies over there who are coming to hurt you").
This profound essay (which in my view is a must read for every human on the planet) shows in detail exactly how this trick is repeatedly used by the corporate-capitalist billionaire ruling class and their narrative managers (in legacy media and social media) to keep humanity in a constant God-ignorant state of religious/nationalist/tribalist division, fear and hatred, the state of US vs THEM, in order to maintain their control over us (how exactly does such a state ensures the rule and control of the corporate-capitalist billionaire class over us is explained in detail in the essay) https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies
There is good and bad in everyone. To deny our own bad, we reify it in others, deluding ourselves that we have purified ourselves of bad. This is complicated by the fact that there are some people in whom the expression of bad is more prominent, even to the point that the good is almost invisible. But this doesn't deny the reality that good and bad exists inside everyone, to varying degrees. The question is how we can elicit more good and less bad, or at least keep the bad on a leash. It starts with trying to accept the bad in ourselves, and cultivating and nourishing the good, watering it regularly with loving drops of reverence.
Well said. I find it harder to forgive the 'bad' in myself than I do in others. We are not only primed instinctively to judge but 'civilised' society inculcates us to judgementalism. Therein lies the first stumbling block... I love your image of leashing and watering. I may use that when I'm beating myself up next time 🐱
THanks. I partially stole the metaphor from Thich Nhat Han.
My new mantra .. I meet myself with love .. includes my bad 🥰
Ah, but what is good and what is bad? Isn’t categorizing like this the same thinking that allows for us/them?
You have been saying this for as long as I’ve known you but I do not think ever so succinctly, piercingly or with such urgency. Your current vantage lends extra weight to this sacred call to action. It starts at home. It starts with our neighbors. It starts in small local races for modest public offices. Thank you for continually calling in the better angels of our nature. 🙏
Wow, this is one of the most insightful things I've ever read. (autocorrect, ironically, tried to write that as 'inciteful').
LOL
That’s hilarious
In the tarot, the Ryder Waite deck and similar, the humans are chained to the devil. But the chains are loose! All they have to do is lift them over their heads and they are free!
Thank you, Charles, for your courage and clarity. Our whole ecosystem shines with an intraconnected life essence. Our personal contribution comes when we choose life-affirming behaviours. Easy to say!
I just completed a three day practice of catching myself (when I was consciously aware), each time a biased, judgmental, prejudicial, or mean thought arose. And then sat with it to see what in me needed to be let go, to at least find a neutral place. It was the most daunting and difficult practice of my 76 years and brought me to my knees with humility. I have come to realize it must continue to be my daily and diligent work for the rest of my days. Your words deeply enforced why and gave me the essential motivation to do so. In deep gratitude……..
I have started a practice of stopping looking listening and using people’s names .. I’m pretty bad at it. Trying to shift away from being a tool in the system .. our interactions with each other are key. I’ve always wanted to make a tshirt which says us =them. Anyway. Living and learning best we can do.
What a beauty-filled practice! Having recently done a (truncated version of) Vision Quest out on the land overnight, I am acutely aware of what the mind can do if it is left unchecked with habitual thinking...It is indeed, a humbling experience to face oneself in this way 🧡
In dealing with this present crisis of humanity, one I would distill down to a crisis of trust and intuition, I find myself spiraling between your words to not turn away and those of retreat offered by the recent writings of Paul Kingsnorth. Thanks for being a Human Being Charles :) I wish for the words you’ve written to become embodied by those who’ve read/heard them and to resonate widely.
It comes down to speaking a new language of unity, rather than division (us vs them) in as many ways as we possibly can. To paint pictures of a world where we are able to sit at table where someone disagrees with us and yet we can still have a meal together. What does a compassionate, healthy population look like?
I've upvoted your comment for its focused intentions. However, as a crappy job holder that was trained by a lifer salesperson I well recall being taught on the sales floor the lessons of what is known in sales (check with playwright David Mamet for illustration via his long-running play Glengarry Glen Ross also adapted to movie screen and cable tv streaming tube) as "The Presumptive Close." That technique and widespread practice of influence peddlers of all varieties fits your utopian mystical formulation to a tee and word for word in your superb journalistic lede (where it also applies in a positive rather than cynical way).
Oh, a more concise and illuminating illustration of my own trepidation with your choice of words and presumed intentions is this short explanation by screenwriter, playwright, director and rapping performer who shot much of his first film in Oakland (where I happened to call home after being priced out of Berkeley during gentrification): Here is Boots Riley summing up his creative strategy on sales from additional perspectives:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ceG3v5a4Yg
Boots Riley And The ‘White Voice’ In “Sorry to Bother You”
VICE News
9.05M subscribers
56,874 views Jul 13, 2018
"If you’re not white, odds are that you’ve used a ‘white voice’ on the phone.
"It comes down to speaking a new language of unity, rather than division (us vs. them) in as many ways as we possibly can...."
What a woyld of woes we still find ourselves in (even with best of intentions.....)
Thanks for keeping Freedom simple....
Health and balance
Tio Mitchito
Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers
Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of Atonement Seekers)
Media Discussion List\Looksee
A song to accompany this piece...
"Send Love to Everyone (Heal the Divide)" by The Song Gardeners
https://lnk.dmsmusic.co/thesonggardeners_sendlovetoeveryonehealthedivide
"Send love to everyone, no matter what they have done"
"We heal the divide when we stop taking sides"
Thank you! Refraining from "othering" is a daily practice for me and I emphasize "practice" because every day, I fail. I recognize myself too well in your lines: "Did I tell you what my sister-in-law did? Can you believe it? Wasn’t that inexcusable. You and I wouldn’t do such a thing." The impulse to be 'good', the desire to be a force for goodness in the world, is great. But so often it is paired with an impulse to carve the world into 'good' and 'bad' and as you point out, that leads down a dangerous path.
We have to let go at every opportunity of our self regard whilst nurturing ourselves and seeking to do better without judgements. It all applies best if we do not see ourselves as separate from others .. we inter are as per TNH. We interbe. Your pain is my pain.
It all begins when we identify as an us and a them. Self referential thinking. When we realize that this default premise is a ruse, and that in reality we are all interconnected, we are all part of one being, that we are all sacred just as the universe around us is sacred, we begin to shift human consciousness to a higher level of evolution.
Agreed. Do you know of a good 'how to' manual?
Each of us has a different path (manual) to follow. Each of us has an inner and outer spirit of guidance. Set your intention each morning and be relentless. The journey you are on is the greatest act of love that you can offer your self and the world. Place your energy on non-attachment to thoughts, and taming your mind. This is a common teaching of all of the wisdom traditions. Choose carefully what your mind consumes and remove people and content which does not resonate with your intuition. Choose to live a pure life in each moment. It is the expansion of our inner silence, rather than our thinking mind that offers the wisest intuition. People, podcasts, youtubes, social media posts and your own intuition will spontaneously and effortlessly guide you more and more. You will find your own path, your deepest truth from your own direct experience. If you are uncertain, choose the path of humility and patience. You will know by choosing that which resonates within.
"Talking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell addresses this (and is a very good book).
In my bass lesson just this morning my student and I talked about the in-out group dynamic about why people conform and act against self-interest, touching on so much of what Charles has spoken about here. Another "coincidence" showing that I am as ever aligned with how he sees the world - this commonality that exists without intent, practice or plan - as do so many others, but I wish there were so many more.
I also believe fully in the power of the individual to effect change wherever they hold the most power in our often viewed as, 'insignificant' lives, (even in the family home is enough).
I speak about this to my students, my friends, in my poetry and songs, I talk about empowerment and balance when I do shows and chatter between songs, sowing seeds to help shape ideas in what later might take form as random thought in those who may've shared those moments.
I understand the power I have and that we all have to contribute, without giving up our 'normal' lives, connections and livelihoods, without need to become some sort of dissident or radical activist.
The key terms are ACT and ACTIVE. We all hold the power to act in a small ways to contribute towards bringing about the world we want to see - (I wrote a song about it lol)
My inspiration comes from those that care. My hope comes from those that talk about the why they care, my motivation away from despair is influenced by listening to the words of those that act, like Charles to share thoughts about how they view the actions and patterns emerging in societies across the world.
This is the taking action I mean - one that helps us to cope with the pessimism and despair or anger and acts of violence seen everywhere around us all.
This is the kind of act that matters. Really matters.
Thanks for those actions taken by everyone who speaks up. Thanks Charles
What does it matter the colour of skin, ethnic race or religion? Why has the label become more important than simple character of being? We are all of the human race. What we do to one another is not determined by labels. It is determined by character.
“Maybe there is a beast. Maybe it’s only us.” ~ William Golding (1911-1993), “Lord of the Flies”
I find myself quoting Martin Luther King Jr on that subject every so often these days.
I learned an important lesson being in Patsy's social media cult last summer: men are the current scapegoats in this society. Never have I seen such rabid behavior, most of it from women screeching "what's it like to be you" and parroting a lot of this same line of thought from Charles. So yes, it begins with us. Sure hope Chuck's groupies get the memo. Are you listening Dielle?
I had a similar experience. Seemed to be full of childless cat ladies.
Charles' writing about Toxic Masculinity vs. Tonic Masculinity is downright embarrassing in its feminism-inspired saccharine infantilism. It's like Ayn Rand's nonsensical philosophy turned inside out: Rand ceaselessly sentimentalized and romanticized all things masculine (or what she deemed masculinity to be), and Eisenstein does the same thing with all things feminine.
I have not heard that term “tonic masculinity”. I guess it makes sense to try to counter the idea of “toxic masculinity”, but I think in light of a lot of what goes on in his circles it might make more sense for him to try to address toxic femininity, although I suspect he’d lose a large chunk of his fan base and the income generated therefrom. But hey, gift economy and all that, so he doesn’t care about the money.
Is this a critique ?
How dare anyone criticize Chuck the Great and Powerful!
Sounds like a critique of a certain type of toxic female behavior to me.
Thanks Jim .. just trying to crack the code of the in house comments. I prefer clean communication myself.
Me too. You should really check out non-violent communication (NVC). Maybe that would crack the code. Lots of NVC experts in house in NAAS.
Important work. Yet I do want to add that it is not about the devil. There is something deeper to the split between good and evil, order and chaos, life and death. A sort of self-deception within humanity. Where we do not see the world for what it is. It is the entire idea of sin and virtue itself, next to scapegoat and redeemer that creates the split, which leads to everything we see. Though this split is an illusion, that leads people to act out of ignorance and self-deception. Not seeing things as they are. One can talk all about love and compassion and have people try to strive for these virtues as an external thing, but that in itself creates by necessity sin. It is what the Jungians call the scapegoat complex. I have worked through this for a long time as former scapegoat.
Anything like love, compassion and kindness are not acts but states of being. Same as anything else. So we can not make ourselves or others kind or loving. In the sense of striving or doing. Making it happen. The fact is that we are both the scapegoat and the redeemer. We are the ones carrying all the pain of our trauma's. Yet also carry this inner state of wholeness and healing. It is through knowing our own pain, that we can truly cultivate true compassion. Yet even then people should be helped to realise their own inner redeemer. The only way to do this is not by avoiding our own suffering, but to feel through it, nurture the fragmented parts within. Through this process comes healing, transformation and with it wholeness and deeper and deeper states of true non-duality.
Whilst these writings are important to have people reflect on these things. I do want to note that we are like a single raindrop reflecting all the other raindrops in the spiderweb of life. So in that way if we are still mostly unconscious and not yet moved past the state of eternal eclipse, we similarly become internally a reflection of the world, as much as the world is a reflection of us, and all that dwell in it. Similarly our culture is a reflection of the internal state of being of it's people. Many are placing all that represents goodness, and even badness, but overall, completeness, outside of themselves. Having emptied themselves of everything that they are. They have become like a friend of mine put in simple terms an empty bookshelf. No wonder many feel empty and we live divided.