“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” George Orwell
The first known empire can be traced back less than 5,000 years. It was called the Akkadian Empire and occupied what is now loosely referred to as the Middle East, likely the cradle of civilization. Our human ancestors have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, living in fragmented civilizations with modest interaction between them. I have no idea who put a bug up someone’s butt to bring a bunch of disparate city states under one rule.
Now, I’d be asking myself, what the hell is this guy talking about and why? I always try and think about my own life in relation to the world around me. Recently, I have been focused on my age, a diminishing commodity for sure. At the same time, witnessing what is going on in our politics and on the world stage, you have to think about the possibility that we have reached a tipping point, followed by the demise of what we have taken for granted for years.
I have been working on coming to terms with my mortality, privately and on the page. We are all renting our time here and that also applies to the throne of the current empire. The truth of our impermanence is a game changer for how you and I deal with our own world and the one we all inhabit. Dominant societies have come and gone, since the first official one had its run. They have all been mirrors of their citizenry.
Power is very intoxicating, whether it be Muskian or Trumpian, when all you see is yourself. The future is a mirror of our past and we are blind to its message. At the end of World War I, America was on its way to getting fitted for that throne. Then, the world became all about us and dominion over others became the country’s mantra. We did it with a closed fist, rather than an outstretched palm. Improving the lives of others was perceived as a threat to our supremacy.
All you gotta do is take a peek in that mirror. Looking at what is going on in our country right now, bears the symptoms of every empire’s demise. What happens when the dust clears, assuming it does? I see a land looking like it has been devastated by an unbelievably powerful tornado, lying in ruins. Assuming the will exists to rebuild, it will never look the same, weakened by its past.
Just like you, here I am in the midst of this shit show. You know, the hope is the older you get, the more you learn. I am not sure I’ve been a very good student, but I have been trying. I would like to think my ego has shrunken just a little, the space being filled by humility. The trick is trying to get a large, diverse group of people to embrace that way of being. Insecurity is fed by too many mouths, unwilling to share. Being alone together is a disastrous formula, proven out over the millennia. Manipulation is a key to crowd discipline and I’d say we have dramatically increased the tool box used toward that end.
In spite of the advent of the comb over and Botox, most of us know we are going to age with the passage of time. As I have written repeatedly, this kind of stuff is right up the Buddha’s alley. He bet that if we can really come to terms with the nature of our imperfect existence, we will more fully embrace others and the world around us. Judging by thousands of years of our behavior, we have always refused to embrace both our impermanence and the relationship of all things to everything, intentionally unfathomable. These acts of faith on his part, are slowly being proven true. The current fear of science and research is about the things we will find out about ourselves and our universe. They serve to erode the power of ignorance, which every dominant society thrives upon.
A coupe of days into writing this piece, I found the Orwell quote and grabbed it, because it fits perfectly into what I am attempting to share with you. Our past is being rewritten to exclude absolutely everything that doesn’t applaud the ascendancy and righteousness of the white, Christian male. The current epidemic of law suits and presidential tirades challenging free speech and media messaging is an effort to encircle the present, controlling the narrative.
Of course, I understand what Orwell means when he refers to the past and the future, but I see it differently when it comes to our everyday life. For you and I, the present is an infinitesimally, fleeting moment in time, joining the past and future together. We can gaze at the past and do the same for the future. The present is incalculable, long gone before we have a chance to be with it. It is like the fulcrum on a seesaw. It lives in between the motion.
The present happens very quickly. The trick is trying to pay attention. Today, this discipline is referred to as being mindful. This kind of awareness is sorely missing from our contemporary, political situation. What is happening today is evidence of a decadent perspective. We are updating the history books with the next story of a dominant society choking on itself. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are extraordinary documents, holding out the promise of the creation of a country that could defy the odds of longevity.
Our flawed nature as human beings is a critical ingredient in every nation’s recipe for its existence. Over the millennia, time has sped up. It use to take months for news to travel and now it is instantaneous. Global travel is not an expedition, just a plane flight. The Roman empire, in its various incarnations, was around for over a 1,000 years. Maybe our country will morph into a non-identical twin of its former self and live beyond its 100 years of dominance.
Our forever flaw is something I sit with every day. The fact that each of us is uniquely different is what we actually have in common. The fact that each of us wrestles with our own impermanence, while surrounded by a world in constant flux, is also what we share. My cushion keeps whispering compassion in my ear, while the megaphone of society screams dominance over others. We have never been able to come together and I doubt we ever will.
The only way to change a game is to change the rules. Right now, we have one person changing the rules of the game, a game that belongs to all of us. Since forever, we seem to be happy being played by someone else’s rules. Maybe, one day, we will change the rules.
A guy can hope and screw the odds:
”Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his greatness must decline.” Mein Kampf
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https://www.buzzsprout.com/admin/1292459/episodes/17328270-the-future