An excerpt from a recent conversation with a dear friend. Only my responses are here and the questions or responses that I received have not been included.
About the shooting, I’m very conflicted about this whole situation related to race now what it has become (in context of the riots during the first week of June in 2020). I know what people are demanding and I approved of the methods they were using at first but now I don’t think much good will come out if only bits of conversations and videos are taken out of context. I don’t think people are ‘thinking’ enough for themselves. The pain might have made them numb but they’ll have to heal and come together to arrive at solutions. You can’t expect tone deaf people to have humane or sometimes sane conversations.
I am not very confident that we as humans can legislate out (and in) everything, legislation is good, encouraging and empowering, but people need to slow down and converse more importantly. I can totally understand if this view would not be accepted by most who want to create value, drive efficiency and be the most productive in society but a part of our brain is still looking out for the venomous snake/ predator in the bush and is simply glad that our body has a place to rest under a roof at night. Those parts of our brain don’t reconcile with the structure of societies in the modern world today. Those parts of our brain don’t reconcile with the deluge of information from every direction. We start to rely on heuristics which are unreliable, biased and mostly, if not always flawed. The answer is not that we stop all development but perhaps we slow the pace of the capital race. Perhaps we need to legislate those things that are important eventually but people need to come together, compete less and converse first.
What is the solution and how do we get around to this?
Maybe ask individuals that make up the society about self actualization? Do people realize that everyone is suffering and trying to do their best with what they’ve got. The immediate question becomes is this scalable? … perhaps not at the pace that requires overnight change but perhaps a more long lasting measure that is slow and every micro step is in the right direction.
What’s my long lasting measure?
Having the best of the best ponder about a new system of existing. Communicate and get together. Maybe at the cost of self ridicule but keep pushing myself to understand more about people, places and culture and everything that connects them. So that in effect everytime I come in touch with someone, either I or the other person has an awakening of some kind. I’m fighting a battle within my head all the time. The only answers to my questions will come from my connection with other people who seem to have figured it out, now or in the ages past and then convey the message to others who are fighting the good fight.
What is the tactical step?
It will be implemented just like a new govt is implemented. It doesn’t need a complete breakdown of everything bad in the system. First and foremost people need to understand the grammar and language before they can converse with each other. The decadent features of the system will erode away and be left behind once people are “talking” the same language.
I should have said administration as opposed to govt, my bad. When a new administration is put into place they enter with new objectives, new goals, new people. I agree there are parts of the system itself that are inherently corrosive (see what I wrote above for a solution to that)
About whose grammar we should use and why prefer one language over another? There are some truths that are common to all, there might be different ‘words’ that people use but they’re all in essence trying to understand why they’re born, how best to utilize their time here and afraid they’re going to die. “Leaders” and the main stream narrators, who don’t have skin in the game to actually solve problems or convey problems would like the rest to believe otherwise. For e.g. I don’t think I’m left wing or right wing either, I don’t think I’m nationalist or centrist or a socialist, etc. I think I appreciate nuances in most conversation and think abstractions and labels might help sometimes but also pollute the conversation other times. So, yes, not the documented dialects between whites, blacks, natives, asians or any other group. Just the basic needs everyone has and the lies they tell themselves to make life easy to endure.
But I don’t think people want to talk and reason anymore. It was never easy but it’s only harder now. Some are angry, some are distraught, others are yet redirecting their idleness in a mission, of their church, of their community, of their family, flag, caste, PAC, organization. There are others still who want the chaos to continue while they get by. After, they’ll emerge as voices of reason, compassion and gratitude, while their coffers will have benefited from chaos and uncertainty. And of course they’ll “give away“ some amount of their wealth, and yet again only to gain something else in return.
Nth Blog 