Comments for Picking Cherries

Comment on Peace by ichabod

ichabod — Sun, 20 May 2012 02:57:23 +0000

Hi bouzouki;

Music is a good metaphor for peace until the drumbeat of the other sounds.

Comment on Peace by ichabod

ichabod — Sun, 20 May 2012 02:49:54 +0000

Hi jonolan;

Methinks you be right in your opinion. When those things that we refer to as fertile soil, rarely does peace germinate.

I see this here. No work, business is down and theft is prevalent. In the slow season, violence will occur more frequently as desperate people will resort to the unthinkable to survive.

Comment on Peace by bouzouki

bouzouki — Sat, 19 May 2012 21:28:16 +0000

I think we are dancing around the semantic thing again. I don’t think we can make peace, perhaps we can arrive at peace, or be at peace, but we have to be quiet to get there. I consider it a state of mind, better than most and without a diplomat to tell me where it is.
Peace is neither wanting empire, nor wishing for something else (as in desire), not hidden, nor openly paraded in front of others.
Peace is security without paranoia, liberty with justice, and serenity with acute awareness.
The fertile soil, no gardener can be without it for long….
Is it that if a human finds peace, others covet it, and do their best to take it, which never leaves them with peace, but if a human finds peace, that person can live even in the tumult of humans full of having a bad day.
When I would seek peace, I could never find it, but if I want peace I get to be it. It reminds me that life is fleeting, the way is broad and flat, yet we all seem to want to walk narrow paths on steep ledges. We have the word peace because we don’t know peace. If we lived it, there would be no word for it.
On the other hand, we know war, have a word for it, and practice it, even when we say we wish for peace.
I really wish for vegetables, pulled from the dirt and prepared as food. We seek food, die without food, prepare food, and some of us grow food. Changing peace to food and find it is a worthwhile goal, but I consider than the U.N. did not chose food-full sanction, but foodless sanctions, basically. I am all for food, and if (peace)food feeds me, I will take it.
The interface between me/not me, the interface of metaphor, that dividing line where Tao meets us all, that is where peace is, usually within the space between our thoughts, I guess, for most of us, impossible. That is why we join organizations to enforce what we cannot have, demand that we be at peace, while being assured there can be no peace. To sow discord, there is no need for fertility, or any wisdom, barely need a seed,
I went to listen to music today, and I guess, in large urban areas, that is not hard to do, nor is it hard to play if one has the skills, but liking the feeling of listening to music has fed me for years. I’ll take these moments when ever I can, this part of life is probably only for those that sense it, a metaphor for peace.

Comment on Peace by jonolan

jonolan — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:27:19 +0000

Peace is not a worthwhile goal and should, insofar as I can see, not be sought.

Peace is, when best reached, a pleasant byproduct of other things such as liberty and security. When sought after as a goal, the seeking of it often brings about the destruction of men, women, and children that you rightfully fear.

The Iraqis sought peace under Saddam and it led to their enslavement. The UN sought peace in the Mid-East and chose peaceful sanctions against Saddam instead of war and this led to 100′s of thousands of Iraqi deaths and the collapse of the bulk of Iraq’s infrastructure – to no avail I add.

No, I say seek not for peace. Seek instead for those things which can be fertile soil for peace to grow in.

Comment on Peace by bouzouki

bouzouki — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:58:38 +0000

India and Pakistan, England, France, and maybe somewhere else carries a hostile weapon of mass destruction. The enemy of peace is fear, I suppose, but it could be greed, misplaced anger and love of power as well.
My cat wanted to walk across my keyboard and we had a claw and flicked finger hostile encounter, until he decided to go relax in his cat bed, and I checked for blood.
I read about a huge computer that should sometime be able to decode any cypher, built for an American secret agency. The American government is so full of secrets, known and hidden, that the one thing we know is someone spends money to guard the secrets, and even is they are not secret anymore, we must pretend the secrets matter enough to stay secret. We can’t have peace, because people may want what we want, and what we want is a secret.
There is peace in an understanding of our human nature and being able to set all that petty stuff aside. The important concerns; compassion, empathy, art, music, nature, and love are put in places where some of it is bought and sold, much is used as background and some idiot decides what has value in all of it. Nature is valued if it is pretty, art sold at auction, music played for free isn’t as good as a knock-off of a previous hit, manufactured for a radio conglomerate by a named voice, and peace and love are nice enough for tee shirts, but serious peaceful loving action requires authoritative action in response.
The human fantasy must be cracking around the edges. The rich are not rich enough, the powerful must feel insecure, and the long-time poor are still barely making it through the day, but they can smile at a moment’s beauty, if they see it. I held peace in a big deep breath, and I exhaled.

Comment on Why does the Man from Galilee need the Legionnaires of Christ, or anyone for that matter. by jonolan

jonolan — Thu, 17 May 2012 20:13:39 +0000

As bouzouki said, all meaningful change comes from within. All an external entity can do is enforce compliance with the letter and form, never the spirit on an idea.

Comment on Why does the Man from Galilee need the Legionnaires of Christ, or anyone for that matter. by bouzouki

bouzouki — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:59:02 +0000

The idea of saving souls, or imposing a democracy on others is a lot like my daughter’s attempts to fix her friend’s problems. she always failed, which made her mad, but she refused to believe that she could not change anyone, only herself. I think saving souls, or imposing democracy is a way of trying to justify acts before a greater entity, but secretly justifying the inner monster.

Comment on Why does the Man from Galilee need the Legionnaires of Christ, or anyone for that matter. by ichabod

ichabod — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:59:40 +0000

Hi jonolan;

Your last paragraph really hits home. I never quite thought of it that way before, but it is true isn’t it?

It comes from within.