Response Ability

 I would like to honour those who, due to their tremendous courage and compassion, have put themselves on the line, and stood up in defence of the defenceless. Despite those who profit from and exploit conflict at the expense of those combattants who sincerely want to help.

Something we all share

When should a nation or individual engage in conflict? Many claim to not like war, or make arguments to endorse it as a necessary evil, but it's much easier to make such a claim if they are not the ones who are physically engaged in the conflict. To actually put oneself on the line should not be motivated by the gratification of potential accolades or social approval, but by assessing the gravity of a situation, and making the necessary introspection into ones soul to determine honestly what ones role, and measured response should be.

Humans love freedom, and the soulmate of freedom is responsibility, a 'Response Ability' to one another directly, and in the informed ethical choices we make with the currency we spend. We have four 'Response Ability' options to chose from, let's walk through them.

choice number one: to over respond (violence, physical and verbal/to fight)

choice number two: to under respond (Flight/ to hide, run or cower)

choice number three: to not respond (defiant inertia, state of grace, arms folded at peace)

choice number four: a measured response (combination of pro-action, communication, and trust)

Let's throw away the first two, they both lead to no good, like putting past the hole, or falling short, both are failures. This leaves the last two. Obviously the correct response is a measured response, one which carefully balances the many variables at play (Force/Surrender/Trust/Respect) into a kind of sweet spot, we often refer to it as being in the zone, full integration of both right and left hemispheres of the brain. But collectively, as a species, are not there yet, we hope someday soon to be there, which is why at this point now we must chose the other option. 

The other option of which I speak is 'to not respond'. It can easily be confused with under response, but there is an important difference.

To not respond is to be meditative, to be the arbiter of one's cadence, it doesn't mean to never respond, merely to respond at a rate that is comfortable to the responder. Saving the potential to be used once a proper balance is achieved, however long that may take. To not respond is to say no to manipulation, to chose not to chose, to wait until an intuitive understanding is achieved. It can be viewed by those of action to appear indecisive, People who chose to act, perceive inaction as a state of limbo or an eternal purgatory. They act out of fear for the fear of he who hesitates is lost, when in fact he who believes he who hesitates is lost is lost. 

Fear will drive a subject to act irrationally, believing that any action is better than no action. Much of our foreign affairs policy is based on this, by at least having the appearance of being decisive. This is viewed by the unconscious members of the public as being infinitely superior to a flat footed passivity, yet M. Gandhi proved otherwise, and Lao-Tzu spoke of the pathless path as being the path to enlightenment. Non-response mesmerizes and confuses the fearful, yet it is ridiculed by them, it infuriates them, it holds the mirror to them and it forces their hand.

The Mirror will reflect the ugly fearful gaze back as truth, and this truth will cause pain, and those who hold the mirror will be hated, by those who hold hate in their hearts. The hate they feel is self-hate, but they will never blame themselves, to do this is to absorb guilt, and guilt is the hardest weight a soul may bear. This is why many people smother or deny their soul, and develop a thick callous to protect their true selves by the fabrication of and deification of their external ego. But you are not such a person, for if you were, you never would have read this far, my words would have caused you too much pain, and would have been rejected with a repulsion as water explodes when poured onto hot oil.

Those who are comfortable in their temples of self-gratification sense the walls of their temples becoming thinner and thinner. They hear the clock ticking tick tick tick, like Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tell Tale Heart'. Humanity is calling, our race is crying out, those of us who sense we have done something which must be undone and must do that which is still not done, are accelerating their cadence with a deterministic confidence, precise and meditative, unflappable and unstoppable, on a mission to inject soul back into the dying heart of humanity, an attempt to jump start our dormant capacity for compassion, laid waste by the pacifying properties of our satiated desires. Lies, are now seen for what they are, Yet The fearful still seek to control, however the more they do, the more things get out of control. They destroy that which they fear, but that which they destroy returns stronger than ever, the higher they climb the ladder, the greater their fall will be. Now Seven billions awaken, and will scramble for their freedom enacting a measured response, before our little house burns to the ground.

You will be called spineless, or even 'passive aggressive', for you have robbed them of their motivations and justifications for  engaging in conflict, and because they know you have ascended to a level beyond the event horizon of external ego which they have been incapable of achieving. for them it's conquer or be conquered, and they wish to spread this meme throughout the planet, because in order to win another must lose. This is their drug, victory, acquired through struggle, to explain to them that the same goal can be achieved by not struggling is too much for them to accept. They hate you for your victory over ego, a conundrum they've not been able to solve. To go with the flow, and use the momentum of the attacker against himself is the foundation of gentle martial arts like Aikido.

Resistance is futile, comply, surrender, and watch their empires collapse under the weight of their own greed.

Be prepared to be mocked, slandered, ignored, reviled, your mirror shows them a reflection of their false self, they would rather die marching toward destruction than admit their lives were based on a false premise, yet always remember, although we may still have a long way to go, it's always better to be at the bottom of a ladder you DO want to climb then halfway up one you do not.

In a tug of war, let the rope go, your opponent may 'win', but I assure you, You will stand with dignity, while the 'victor' has fallen on his ass.

Dirty CT   November 2011