It shouldn't be news for those who know me well how deep my emotions could get. Lately, I've been profoundly affected by our present collective situation. But also touched by the anger, cynicism, mockery, fear, and laughter the monster arouses in people around me. I have personally reacted to some events with laughter, because otherwise I'd be in tears for the daily display of absurdity and viciousness of the present situation. I try to ration the news even though I can't avoid them for a long time when our safety may be at play any minute. However, I'd like to make a fine distinction between the person and the character, between mocking the person and mocking his actions.
Both the actions and the reactions sadden me, and at the same time the situation looks so ridiculous to me considering the age we live in, that it provokes my laughter. It seems to me that I am watching a play, that this situation is a comedy in the large stage of life, a work of Salvador Dalí, a cubist canvas from Picasso. Surreal. Dismembered reality. All of the sudden, the actors are speaking, no! not Greek, it would be too similar to the three languages I speak. Chinese! There is nothing I can make up of it.
And still, I can't pass the mockery against the person. It is obvious that the guy is an ignorant, lives completely unconsciously asleep, and therefore has become the perfect puppet. So oblivious of reality he's more a character in a puppet's show than a real life individual. But mocking a disabled person is not funny. It doesn't make anybody better, as we already confirmed. He should inspire more compassion than anything else, because he can't really do better. Like Ajahn Brahm once said about difficult people, it's better to have the attitude of "the guy hit his head when he was a child, and since then he's been like this". His case is pathetically pitiful. It bears repeating. But remember, his conditioning, the way he is -after hitting his head in infancy and such- is not his fault. So laughing at that or at his ignorance wouldn't be fair. I once had someone laugh at my ignorance and my feelings and it didn't seem fair because I didn't even know that there was something to be ignored. And about feelings, one can do very little except observe them and not to act upon them. Can you see what I mean? If a person has a disability, a mental condition or disorder, one should have compassion, because those are already a hardship and the origin of much suffering for oneself and those around.
Having said that about the person, it is impossible not to reject, one way or another, the actual actions of the character, his lavishly aggressive and often denigrating utterances, his wicked decisions, his malevolent designs, his elitist and unjust orders, his divisive intentions, his quarreling mood, his service to money makers, and all the rest. Is he aware that he's pushing the anger button? I'm not so sure, because he seems to be only concerned about the 'me, myself and I' side of life, worshipping himself by debasing others. Is he aware of the consequences? Probably not. Considering that social media tailors your pages to show you what you want to see, and his TV is certainly tuned to the channels that revere him (obviously, he can't stand watching anything that states otherwise), he doesn't even know what is really going on.
If you agree about the grotesque of this situation, it is in our reactions that we should be constructive, never destructive. The solution is not so much about eliminating the problem, but rather creating an innovative replacement that dissolves it naturally. Again, remember Ajahn Brahm's re tale of the Buddha's timeless story of the "Anger Eating Demon".
The more we lash back to the problem, the bigger it gets, the more we fight it, the stronger it gets. The key is to concentrate that energy in building the world we want to live in, and the old will crumble down on its own. For this task, fear, anger, cynicism, suspicion, mockery and lack of respect for the actors and their followers actually waste the energy necessary for building. Also protesting has its limitations and may as well consolidate conceptions and positioning by antagonism. Voicing dissent should be intentionally planned to attain a specific target (like showing the numbers), but all efforts shouldn't be spend on it.
Do I really know what I want to substitute for this reality? Have I identified my passion about something I want to create, build, give birth to, generate, germinate? Do I have room and time to follow my passion and make it happen? Are there other people I'd like to join to make it happen together? It's time to concentrate the energy, avoiding the scattering of it in demonstrations of heated emotions that can only add to the problem and even worsen it. We have infinite possibilities in front of us now. I think we should take advantage of the momentum and take off. Carrie Newcomer has a point in her popular song "If not now, tell me when".
