The difficulty our government faces jumps right out at me through the comments I am hearing on what the government ‘should’ do.
In an odd way people don’t appear to fully realize that they are the government. Effectively, this means that the diverse self-interests I am hearing, no matter how noble and egalitarian they feel in the eye of those beholders, reveal the stark difficulty Washington ‘big government’ faces.
In the end, stalemate is the result of people struggling to do what is not naturally possible, struggling to make matters better as a long term rule, is not of the dao. Not of the dao ends early.
Like rolling a boulder up a hill, statesmanship lies in seeing ways to roll it down hill instead. Ideals based in self-interest amount to pushing the boulder uphill. Pulling together with sincere common-interest and common-purpose is the only effective way. Having only half the country aligned with your interest is not exactly a mandate in common-purpose. It looks more like a mandate in the eye of the beholder.
We only seem able to focus our collective self-interests into common-purpose when we are experiencing true disaster. World War II was probably the last time that really occurred here. Therefore, I’m a fate realist: we humans, like all animals, are reactive, NOT proactive. Sure, we are able to imagine, talk, and project our proactive vision of a perfect answer to the question, “what should government do?” We are often helpless in follow through…
Our words are very easy to know, very easy to do.
Under heaven none can know, none can do.
If Obama had more courage (and/or wisdom?), he might have shorted his ‘dream’ speech and addressed the only dire emergency we currently face: the social safety net which makes up half the budget. All economists, regardless of politics, see the non-sustainability of the path upon which we are headed.
- Raise the retirement age a few years to re-balance the longer lives people now live. Like children, we have no trouble re-balancing it in our favor, to allow for inflation. When it comes to giving up unfair advantages, we balk.
- Means-test it, i.e., why should people with more have the same benefits as people with less? It would also help to recognize how our unquenchable thirst for ‘more’ always ups-the-anti of what counts as minimum? We simply want more than we, both rich and poor, are willing to pay for.
Had Obama seized reality’s current moment, he could have won over most people, conservative, liberal, and independent alike. Such common purpose builds trust, which could then help enable movement on previously intractable issues. As far as I can tell, addressing the national debt is the one BIG thing most people have in common. Next is probably immigration. Talk about guns, climate, even jobs, are red herrings. They all have merit, but the first two lack enough common purpose. Jobs would benefit in the long-run by the increased confidence that effective government (i.e., balance ‘grown up’ budget) would imbue overall, but especially in those who hire people.
The lack of common-purpose and trust is the most corrosive influence in society, bar none. If people connect in common purpose, they establish trust. As they establish trust, each faction becomes more open to compromise on what they would otherwise reject. Again, I’m a fate realist because we humans, like all animals, are reactive, NOT proactive. Chapter 70 (above) says it well. I find it very helpful simply to understand how nature works. Chapter 77 helps take it a little deeper.…
What I notice overall, is a profound hypocrisy that permeates the ideals we profess. Nearly without exception, it is always the other guy we blame for “giving to the surplus“, and also the other guy we insist should “give to all under heaven“. Our ability to hide behind the ‘sin’ of our own self-interest and throw stones at other people’s self-interest is remarkable! (For me, this teeters between being laughable and pathetic, depending upon which side of the ‘mirror’ I am.) Chapter 18 sums it up well…
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If the retirement age were raised, wouldn’t there be less jobs for younger people? There is some benefit to the older moving over for the younger to take their places.
I agree about means testing. It makes no sense that rich people use Medicare. But I’m afraid Rick and I always come out benefiting less. Our thinking is we worked hard for 35 years, going to a job everyday, and we paid lots into our retirement fund. Why punish us with less benefits than people who chose more freedom during their working years? So what you say about self interest strikes close to home and yet our ant and the grasshopper thinking has some validity. Now what did that ant do….
With population declining in developed nations, the worry is that there won’t be enough young people to pay for all the retirement benefits of the old. That’s the short term gain of immigration; replenish the work force with new blood. Short term, because eventually this world’s capitalist pyramid scheme will evolve into a more natural non-growth model (don’t ask me when or what it will look like though)
People take out of social security, medicare and other services, many time more than they put into it. That’s part of the reason we have a $16+ trillion deficit. I forget how many time more. The point is, we have little trouble taking advantage of the system; we balk as paying for the system.
We have a innate need (desire) to get something more for less. That is the root cause of credit card debt (and by extension government debt); that piece of plastic makes it so easy to get what we want without the pain of handing over ‘real money’.
Of course, the defenders of the system have clever rationals for it all. The natural model, pay as you go, is old-fashion and doesn’t apply to modern economy. Ha ha ha. The experts and their famous last words.
As I understand it, we are the big burden, the baby boomers. There are too many of us. But that is a temporary situation as we will die off. Maybe the government should spend money on free cigarettes for seniors. Suicide: it’s the American Way!
I grew up in a pre-credit card world where my family would save up for a new TV or a baseball mitt. When I first started out on my own, I had hand-me-down pots and pans. Then I saved all my old pots and dishes for the boys and, guess what, they didn’t want them.
You once said this whole scheme is unsustainable. That is the truth. Will it resolve in our lifetimes? I don’t think so. It would take a disaster of extreme proportions to get people to live simply again. isn’t that a nice word? Simple.
I see it all as transitional, ending up with the mean age of the human population around 100+, in a human culture much more mature, simple and stable than now. Humanity will end up living in close harmony with the rest of life on earth.
When? As a wild guess, it could be 10,000 years from now. Although, human circumstances seem to change at an exponential rate, so it could be as soon as a few hundred years. Longer, depending on how horrific climate warming’s effects turn out to be.
This period, from the agricultural revolution 10,000BC until perhaps 10,000AD, will go down in human history as humanity’s ‘teen age years’: A period of growth, destruction, folly, and self involvement.
Now, is that good news, bad news, or no news?
Well, it’s no news …if this is nature’s grand experiment, it is what it is and trying to view it as good, bad or otherwise is simply a construct that we apply to it because that’s how our brains are programmed. None of this really, truly matters.
(do I FINALLY have this close to “right?” Of course, I guess I can’t be “right” if there is no such thing …so better asked …is this close to the perspectives that you share with others?)
This answer is tentatively right (or a qualified “right”). Meaning, answers and questions are a moving process complementing each other. To be “more right”, it needs to evoke a deeper question.
For example, approach the question from a personal, emotional, feeling place deep within, and see what moves. Following this process will eventually lead you to the “teaching that uses no words”
PS News is actually gossip; gossip is emotion. Responses arising from emotional depths are never “right” or “wrong”–only honest or less so.
Carl, what about consciousness? Can I really learn to think differently, or am I stuck with my programming? Can I learn to “not know anything” and just experience things? Sometimes I feel like my intellect gets in the way …
Consciousness is not thinking. Thinking arises out of consciousness. Having a big human brain, we are all stuck with thinking. When we trust thinking (emotion = faith and trust), then thinking (intellect) easily gets in the way.
A step in the Right direction could be to answer the “Is this good news, bad news, or no news?” from the deepest honest emotion you can reach.
The vicious circle, emotion drive thinking drives emotion drives thinking… and so on, is non stop until we sever the faith we place in thought and its judgments. If we don’t trust our thought what can we trust? Emptiness and the emotion that evokes. This always returns us to the origin. (uncomfortable though it may feel at times, I prefer this to living in a dream).
Okay. Without over thinking it and just going to my gut, I say it is good news. Life evolves. If we are in our teenage years as a race, I’m happy that we are growing, and understand that the pain/awkwardness of our teenage years will bring us into adulthood.
I also feel afraid …that this teenager might not learn the right lessons, and the adult we grow into will be … out of balance. I guess it is this fear that drives my thinking, which drives my political/social points of view …
Excellent! And on all counts. You worry is from fear. It is unfounded (in impartial truth anyway). It is a projection of your personal self interest. Empathy that sees imbalance ‘out there’ is just a reflection of what you like and dislike either personally or vis-a-vis your tribe ‘in here’.
Putting that aside for a moment and reflect: each creature does its part, fulfilling its role, in nature’s work. This is how evolution works. Humans are no different. Naturally, that only allays the trepidations of life for a moment before we get flung back into the process. That is as it should be. Work is work. The more you can surrender to the work at hand, the less stressful it will be… but it will still feel like work!
In desiring to inhale through the nose, one must first open up.
In desiring a little less, one must first make an effort.
In desiring to let go, one must first begin.
In desiring to take, one must first give.
This saying is little understood.
The weak gets the better of the unyielding
Thanks Carl. This feels right to me too.
Survival is a natural human instinct. Fear must stem from there, somewhere … your reference to personal self interest is really at its core our instinct to protect ourselves. When we think about this, we feed our fear, which drives more complex thinking which throws us out of balance.
So how do we balance giving all of this up … “letting go” as is referred to above … with protecting ourselves? I think of the Caine character in the old TV series Kung Fu … he would watch passively when someone was getting beat up, and defend himself only to the minimum extent needed to survive. He would also protect women or the helpless … this feels right to me but I can’t rationalize it in my mind. Maybe the problem is I shouldn’t … Caine reacted instinctively … he didn’t think? Is that it?
Look at this step by step Mike:
1 Thinking is a neurological ‘mirror’ that fundamentally reflects feeling (emotion).
2 Knowing occurs in emotion and ‘flowers in cognitive understanding’
3 True understanding is built, step by step, upon our base of intuitive gut knowing.
4 It strikes me that you are trying to rush things, striving know through understanding. This sounds like putting the cart before the horse, or moving from top down. This is to be expected: we thinking animals are very ‘top’ and ‘cart’ oriented. We over-think life. (remember chapter 71′s admonition on thinking)
5 The “balance” cum “letting go” we all seek occurs in emotion, in the realm of practice not thinking (ultimately).
This begs for a blog on the practice!
You’re right, of course. My knowing always comes in the quiet spaces, when I’ve stopped trying. I need to remember wu wei …
Thank you again, Sensei. (The Chinese is Shihan, isn’t it?)