March 1, 2008

Children are born into a world of one-ness. There is no apparent separation from their being and those who nurture them. Only gradually, when “the other” doesn’t change a diaper quickly enough or provide food as fast as the baby desires it, does there come an awakening in the infant’s consciousness.  From then on, there grows an inside world and an outer world. In desperation, we try very hard to please “the other,” whether it be parents, siblings, teachers or other authorities. Probably we do their bidding in order to survive. That is understandable. Ultimately, the goal must become one of thinking for oneself.

Election years are a good laboratory. Look around you now, and see how many fellow citizens are truly thinking (hard work!) for themselves. Too often, our countrymen, brought up by the world of entertainment and fashion, latch onto a seemingly-unassailable position that parrots an outer “authority.”  As a former teacher, I confess that our schools don’t make it a primary goal for students to really think hard. Kids are to learn from the authority of the past. In science classes, they do “experiments” in laboratories, but the outcome of those is always known, so a daring investigation isn’t possible at high school level. Memorization is still too common, and few students, or ex-students (adults, to whom it seems “education” is over) do the hard work of pushing the frontiers of “what everyone knows:” what the 21 minutes of evening news tells us is true.

My current writing is tackling the essence of One-ness. The Deity, religion assures us, is One. How then can we live in a world of confronting “the other” constantly?  Where and how are we going to discover our “neighbor,” unless we are willing to take risks?