If his own story is to be believed, Saul of Tarsus was a murdering
zealot who killed the very witnesses of the story he would one day claim as his
own. In the letters compiled in a fourth
century book that has unleashed fanaticism costing the lives of millions across
two millennia, he instructed his followers to imitate him[1]. Ironic, don’t you think, that a man who
killed the very people who might have had an actual memory of the facts he and
his Greek collaborator Luke sought to control for their own influence imposed
his narrative on a terrified population?
Interesting that his only encounter with the man who’s teachings he
represented to intimately know was a blinding flash of light and a thunder clap
en route to Damascus. Equally
fascinating is the fact that a man described as the Prince of Peace would need
a murder and – a few centuries later – a genocidal Roman emperor to advance his
message. If you haven’t read the
accounts of the Council of Nicea where a bunch of men decided what “truth” was
sanctioned and what wasn’t, have a look.
Not surprisingly, any narrative that didn’t reify oppression, suffering,
and sacrifice didn’t make the cut.
Ultimate “truth” it seems, relied upon its sworn opponents to persist.
Of course poverty, murder, torture, oppression and apocalyptic
genocide mark the aspirational end of times.
Easy to describe hell when you recall the blood dripping from stones and
truncheons used to terrorize a population into “belief”. To the literate elite goes the story and the
telling thereof while the uneducated masses cower in fear of whatever god-king
is making their life excruciating.
When I was a little boy, I sat through countless church services
where the ego behind the pulpit would credential itself with fantastic tales of
depravity leading to the hero’s epic crescendo of “finding” Jesus after a life
of “sin”. For those of you who didn’t
get the experience, “sin” usually involved sex, money, greed, power, dominion,
and, on the off chance, some dancing with the Devil. The evidence of a transformed life was the
shunning of these for the “promise” of a gilded afterlife. At my grandfather’s funeral, my voice joined
the chorus of a few hundred who declared:
“For thee
all the follies of sin I resign. My blessed
Redeemer, My savior art Thou… I’ll love Thee in Life and I will Love Thee in
Death.”
While this was a fitting song to mark the passage of my
grandfather who left the indelible mark in his grandson’s life that he would
rather “be with the Lord” than with his grandchildren, I increasingly ponder
the epigenetic effect of the years of acoustic indoctrination to which I was
both subject and a brainwashed participant.
I wonder how much my first two decades of ritualistic indoctrination
have defiled my capacity for living?
Having had the honor of experiencing lived experience in cultures across
the globe, I know that the aperture through which “truth” was defined for me
was both narrow and corrupted with diffractions that served to filter Light. For nearly half a century, I’ve worked to
unshackle the manacles that held me in Plato’s cave wall and I’m starting to
blink my eyes open in nature’s glorious Light.
Sadly, like the protagonist in Plato’s allegory, those who remain
chained can only despise a life that is worth living now for the illusory
whimsy of a hereafter.
While careful triangulation of multicultural history has dimly lit
the treachery of the orchestrated indoctrination of my youth – from cathedrals,
tombs and temples ranging from Peru to Paris, from to Egypt to China – I still
feel my sympathetic nervous system flood with toxic apprehension when the
tenants of “faith” meet the reality of living.
That’s right, words that were recited, hymns that were sung, prayers
that were offered, lashes that fell in the name of “truth” and “love” all form
the perverse incantation that conjure desecration of life rather than its
celebration.
- I know that when I think of money, I have eschewed its accumulation.
- I know that when I think of sex, I have felt impotent with shame.
- I know that when I think of “love”, I have primarily considered unilateral sacrifice of joy.
- I know that when I think of “truth”, I remember being punished for habitually “lying”.
- I know that when I see couples celebrating decades of marriage, I have burned with the disgrace of having to admit my emotional and physical collapse at the 29-year mark.
While I know that I was always told that to pursue knowledge of
good and evil was, well, evil, I have spent several years seeking to understand
both. After all, if there’s value in
being “right” or “good”, somewhere there should exist evidence of better
living, better performance, better relationships, better something resulting
therefrom. Sadly, those who most
ardently advocated my acquiescence to what I was told to be right judged my
life to be wrong, abandoned all those attributes I would consider befitting
family and fraternity, and exiled me from their lives when I challenged
hypocrisy. How could stories and myths
of millennia past justify inhumanity in the present? Is a belief worth more than sharing a dinner,
having empathy for another, or supporting one in time of need?
I’ve often used as a logical reference and guide the examination
of the Archimedean cult for whom inertial masses of solids and the notion of
the precession of wobbles became an obsession.
If one considers every system as a rotating solid, there is a point
somewhere near the center of mass, where the introduction of one subtle
deviation can hijack the momentum of the whole in an irretrievable manner. And like a child’s top, the spinning thing
will ultimately overturn. If, for
example, you could brainwash the living into believing that death offered a
preferred “eternity”, you could enslave untold masses. If “love” could be corrupted to mean
deprivation and sacrifice, you could perpetuate suffering for which you could
peddle charlatan relief.
Allow me to digress. About
20 years ago, my fascination with language became a commercial
preoccupation. You see, I needed to know
if people claiming to be “inventors” had, in fact, come up with something new
or had merely taken the ideas of others and – with the cunning use of a
Thesaurus – recast the ideas of others as their own. To decipher the meaning behind metaphor, I developed
a theory that I called “linguistic genomics”.
Now this term (a metaphor itself) was selected for its literal and
figurative meaning. Literally, language
is a neurological process both in its construction, rationalization, and
communication. As such, it is reasonable
to assume that as with any other organic function, we probably have some finite
structural amplitude in what we can perceive, rationalize, and synthesize. Put another way, there’s probably a limit to
the number of communicable elements we have at our disposal. That’s because the neurotransmitters that
interact to make communication work are themselves limited as is there
combination. Therefore, we’re limited
physiologically from using language to express all essence. Using language as old as the bone writings in
China to Egyptian hieroglyphs to Mesopotamian cuneiform right up through
languages in modernity, what we found was structure rather than frequency,
volume, and dynamic range. To
communicate, we seem to triangulate subject, object, and context. Or to paraphrase the excellent work of
Gregory Bateson, language is about constructing “boundaries” and “pointers” to
render in the mind of the listener a resolution of inferred essence without
containing literal sufficiency to describe that essence fully[2].
Taken figuratively, linguistic genomics implied the ability to
measure the propagation of intent from originator, to propagator, to
manipulator. This inquiry sought to
elucidate the motivation for communication devoid of any literal priority. By measuring the virulence of intents, one
could resolve networks of interest, intentions (for good and bad) of actors
within those networks, and the consequence of those intentions incarnated into
practice. While the details of this
model are beyond the scope of this essay, each day, the effectiveness of my
model is proven in the information advantage this data gives me in my trading
of stocks and measuring of markets – an information advantage nearly 100%
better than all other market data combined.
So I decided to subject the dogma of my youth to the very scrutiny
that I apply to my commercial endeavors.
And while it comes as no surprise that cultural control clusters around
the shaming of sexuality and gender, the selective derision of money (except
for a greedy deity and his self-appointed priests and agencies), and the
futility of life in favor of sacrificially derived post humous glory and bliss,
the most insidious manipulation of all is the very act in which I’m engaging at
this moment – WORDS!
Funny – to communicate the indictment on our most deceptive
paradox we must use the very instrument that separates us from knowledge. Abrahamic traditions have a “beginning” with
words.[3] They have as the punishment for aspirational
divinity by humanity the introduction of language to separate and confuse.[4] And they have the banishment of thoughtful
inquiry as the justification for alienation of anyone who questions the
doctrinal absolutes of consensus construction of words![5] What a perfect racket. Place at the core of cosmology a neurological
finitude, celebrate the acquisition and mastery of the ciphering thereof, and
punish anyone who dares challenge the decisions made by a murderer, a
sociopathic emperor and his conniving mother, and a group of manipulative men in
Nicea. And best of all, tell adherents
that they are being had so transparently so as to make the fraud too
incredulous to consider.
I recently watched the BBC series on Troy. Seeking fidelity with the composite
narratives of the siege and sacking of Troy, many of the characters from
Homer’s Odyssey play their customary roles.
Tragically, the character of Kassandra is developed only as the somewhat
raving seer. While the producers were
happy to include the primetime deities like Zeus and Aphrodite and heroes
Paris, Helen, Achilles, and the Amazons, they failed to include the story of
Kassandra’s curse. According to the
myth, for refusing Apollo’s rape, she was cursed with prophetic acuity but the
incapacity to communicate in a manner that would be heeded. She was always right but never relevant. Her fate for being right was being raped to
death by Ajax in the temple of the goddess of love! Maybe that happily never after ending put the
BBC editorial staff a bit on edge.
Easier, methinks, to portray her as a bit mad.
As I watched the show, it dawned on me that the selective omission
of the present #MeToo awkwardness of Kassandra’s story may have a ripple effect
across time. Portraying prophecy as
mental illness for which an accommodative audience should feel empathy is
easier than confronting the profligate sexual violation of women with
insight. All through the possibly
innocent selective inclusion and exclusion of “words” from the myth. While BBC can join the throngs of voices
castigating misogynist modernity, no credible effort is made to challenge the
uncomfortable aspects of one of the myth’s most fascinating insights. Namely, that society is prone to dismiss the
very prophetic insights from which it could benefit in favor of debaucherous
consensus that is predisposed to fates in wooden horses. This made worse by the fact that wisdom might
come from a woman!
The book that I was told contained “truth” is about 1,500 years
younger than the narrative of the face that launched 1000 ships. Both may very well be inspired by certain
events described by those who heard tales told across centuries about
characters for whom few, if any, had direct recollection. And, in fairness, all I’m doing is examining
my direct observation of reality and placing it under scrutiny in light of a
reference that was put upon me. But what
I know to emerge in my understanding is undeniable. The field effect of words and stories told
millennia ago are shaping my lived experience.
And as a result, if I am going to provide any benefit for my experience,
I might offer a narrative that has fidelity to my lived experience.
And while there’s much more to follow, I’d like to start with
Achilles and Kassandra. Yes, I know, a
bit improbable. But they serve as
metaphors that inform my preceding observations about my early religious
experience and the long tether it’s wound around my life. For the sake of this conversation, let us
assume that the narratives of both Achilles and Kassandra are to be taken as
presented. Achilles is dipped in a river
by a mother who wishes for him immortality only to leave his ankle exposed as
that’s where she held onto him during the baptism. Kassandra refuses the sexual advances of
Apollo and for that reason she is cursed to be always the “I told you so”
outcast. In both cases, their story is
not told by them.
We don’t know what Achilles training was like. We don’t know whether his prowess on the
battlefield was a result of his semi-deific advantage or whether he put in more
hours at the gym. We don’t know if he
liked to fight or whether it was the honorific mandate imposed on him by social
pressures. We don’t know if Alexander’s
fatal arrow was inspired or errant. But
what seems to be the case is that those around him were more fascinated by what
they saw in him that set him apart than seeking to be part of the campaign his
capacity represented. He was an
utilitarian anomaly celebrated for his distinction not for his common
humanity.
We have no idea what frequencies of awareness Kassandra accessed
that eluded others. We don’t know if she
taught herself to read signs and omens in nature, in texts and transmissions,
or in the disposition of others. We
don’t know whether she was beset by fits or whether in desperation, she failed
to comport to the decorum of Priam’s palace and as such, was ineffective as a
messenger because she was pissed off for being dismissed as “just a woman” with
ideas in a world where men were the ones that were supposed to do the thinking,
thank you very much.
In both cases – as in the case of Jesus, Abraham, Confucius,
prophets and seers – we only know that those who were attracted into their
orbit were fascinated by their abnormal capabilities (describing as
“miraculous” that which didn’t have consensus words at the time) and became
seduced by the power of association and approximation without ever knowing the
essence of the lived experience of these characters. And in the case of both Achilles and
Kassandra, both were ultimately killed by a known vulnerability which had
empowered both.
Which leads me to the point.
Humanity could benefit from a new experiment. One that doesn’t seek to indict or diminish
any of those that have been tried before.
After all, the language I’ve used, the metaphors I’ve selected, the
logic framing the argument are born of the very topic under scrutiny and, as
such, are inseparable therefrom. One
that doesn’t dismiss as “wrong” the whispered and manipulated musings of saints
and sinners alike. No, the new
experiment is to leverage the structure of the very instrument that has
propagated harm so often and triangulate a new story. Rather than expressing dogma through words,
let them be part of the story. But let
them merely be that… part of the story. And then use the interconnectivity that we
now have as a ubiquitous utility and actually share as often as possible, the
analog experience of living. Maybe
that’s getting on a plane and flying half way around the world to share a
dinner or a hug. Maybe that’s standing
shoulder to shoulder with those who are in strife and letting them know they’re
not alone. Maybe that’s making love,
accumulating resources, or fully living in each moment as it is, in fact, the
ONLY truth in each instant. For me,
quite literally, it’s choosing to live in public with others so that I’m not
known by the stories that are told but rather I’m experienced by those who
frame the context of my existence and vice versa. And maybe, just maybe, we can begin the
process of reimagining what it means to be human by seeing that which links us
in common interest rather than building myths about what makes us
“different”.
[1] I Corinthians 4:15-16. 4:15 For though you may have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do
not have many fathers, because I became your father in Christ Jesus through the
gospel. 4:16 I encourage you, then, be imitators of me.
I Corinthians
11:1 11:1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
Ephesians
5:1 5:1 Therefore, be imitators of God as dearly loved children
Philippians
3:17 3:17 Be imitators of me, brothers and sisters, and watch carefully
those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example.
Thessalonians
1:6 1:6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, when you received
the message with joy that comes from the Holy Spirit, despite great affliction.
Thessalonians
2:14-15a 2:14 For you became imitators, brothers and sisters, of God’s churches
in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, because you too suffered the same things
from your own countrymen as they in fact did from the Jews, 2:15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the
prophets and persecuted us severely.
Hebrews 6:12 6:12 so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through
faith and perseverance inherit the promises.
[2] Not surprisingly, the very religions that seek
to dominate our modern landscape all rely on plurality to describe the
essential nature of the divine ranging from trinities through pantheons.
John 1:1 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
fully God.
[4]
Genesis 11:7 11:7
Come, let’s go down and confuse their language so they won’t be able to
understand each other.”
[5]
Revelations
22:18-19 22:18
I testify to the one who hears the words of the prophecy contained in this
book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this
book. 22:19 And if
anyone takes away from the words of this book of prophecy, God will take away
his share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this
book.
