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In Which I Consider Getting Into The Tourist Attraction Business

5/6/2022

Since the ongoing birdemic restrictions continue to limit international travel options, my family and I have decided to make the best of it and explore Hungary. This focus on domestic "tourism" has revealed my ten-year-old son's fondness of off-the-beaten path tourist attractions.

For example, about six weeks ago, he asked to visit the world's largest toy hussar. Who was I to say no?

As the photo above shows, this wonder of the modern world stands in the middle of nowhere. The attraction was the brainchild of two locals who -- during a night of excessive drinking -- thought it would be fun to erect the world's largest toy hussar in a small Hungarian town in the middle of nowhere. The photo below gives you some idea of how big "Misi Hussar" is.

On the same outing, my son also pined to pay a visit to a "castle park" that featured scale replica models of most of the castles and fortresses that had stood in Greater Hungary.

The "park" is really just a family's backyard. The family constructed all the models from materials found at the original sites and positioned the mini-castles "geographically" in the "park" -- a large part of which is essentially a map of Greater Hungary -- to illustrate where the structures stood or still stand in terms of place.

I must admit, I found this particular site as interesting as my son did.

On the drive home I spent some time thinking about how I could get into the tourist attraction business. I would need a good idea. After that, it would simply be a matter of pulling it all together.

I began to brainstorm.

The first thing that popped into my mind was "World's Largest Cuckoo Statue."

I cleared my throat and let the attraction business evaporate from my mind.

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Let's Practice System Distancing: The Abortion Edition

5/4/2022

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So, the System has released it's latest current thing communication . . . ahem, manipulation . . . which just happens to focus on everyone's favorite "hot-button issue" -- abortion.

Let's get the obvious out of the way first. Abortion is evil. It is among the most grievous of sins. That is all.

Now that we've cleared that up, let's concentrate on the System's latest current thing, which happens to be a leaked Supreme Court "opinion" draft that challenges the current abortion legislation in the United States.

News of the leak has, predictably, "lit up" the Christian/conservative blog world. Everywhere I look I see Christians and conservative revving themselves up for the next hot battle in the spiritual war. Some are vowing to take the fight to the streets. Others insist the leaked document is a sign of divine providence. A few have even suggested that the document represents a turning point in the spiritual war.

I don't want to add any commentary to the "issue" itself. What I want to do is make people aware of this latest current thing provides the perfect opportunity for Christians to practice system distancing. (The opportunity does not exist for those who identify purely as conservatives because conservatism is wedded to the System by default and cannot exist without it.)

The first thing to keep in mind is this -- the System issued the communication and made sure news of it was widespread. This implies that the Establishment very much wants everyone to be acutely aware of the "issue" and to participate in the issue via the System in some way by thinking about it, writing about it, arguing about it, raising hopes about it, fighting about it, etc. Moreover, the Establishment wants everyone to "have a position" on the issue. They want people to become personally invested in this latest communication on terms the System dictates. This applies especially to Christians, for whom abortion is a big concern.

Secondly, this newest current thing is a clear example of the System wanting people to listen to what it is saying about this issue here and now and to forget about what it is not saying here and now. And there are many things the System is not talking about these days -- the very same things it could not stop talking about mere weeks or months ago.

Thirdly, these sorts of communications are usually released to foster hope in the System. The overall aim is to coax Christians and conservatives into thinking that the System still contains vestiges of real good, that it is capable of self-correction, that it can address "issues" that are important to Christians, that it has the potential to redeem itself and turn a corner.

Fourthly, communications of this nature are meant to keep everyone fixated on external forces that are entirely out of our control. Instead of investing time and energy on aligning with God and Creation outwith the System, Christians are being lured into investing time and energy aligning with the external forces of System manipulation within the System.

Finally, the primary objective of the System is mass damnation, and it will employ the most nefarious and deceptive means to assure this.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't care about abortion or that we shouldn't pay some attention to developments around this "issue".

At the same time, I think it is a mistake to become too invested in this latest "current thing". Moreover, I believe this latest piece of System manipulation offers an excellent opportunity to practice the spiritual imperative of system distancing, which I have briefly outlined here.

To sum up, the best way to help the cause of the issue the System is currently promulgating is too keep your actions and thoughts about the issue largely outside of the System itself.

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They Can Still Impress . . . Sometimes

5/4/2022

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Anyone involved in university-level education knows how rarely students manage to do anything that inspires admiration or respect. The only amazing thing about university students these days is the banal and apathetic quality of their work. Nevertheless, every once in a while something manages to break through and impress.

Case in point, a student presentation from yesterday. The presentation itself was uninspired and dull, but the nature photographs with which the student populated his PowerPoint slides were quite impressive. That the student had taken the photos was even more impressive.

Below is an example. I don't know about you, but the image -- featuring a roe buck in a grain field -- ranks among the most beautiful wildlife/nature photos I have ever seen.

Note added: Of course, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the photo is not actually the student's photo, or that he photo-shopped it, or that he had a friend hold a stuffed deer trophy head in the field to capture this image, but for the time being I'm going to assume the photo is authentic and enjoy the good feelings that stem from that.

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Pitchforks? Really?

5/2/2022

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When the people become aware of "such-and-such" or wake up to "what's really going on" or understand "this-and-that" or realize "whatever there is to realize", then the pitchforks will come out and, by golly, there'll be hell to pay!

I've come across quite a few of these "pitchfork" blog posts and articles over the past two-plus years, all gleefully promising a day of reckoning during which the masses will finally awaken from their stupor and rise up against the powers-that-should-not-be.

I could be wrong, but I see nothing in my daily life or the greater world that points to any sort of pitchfork uprising. Complacency, compliance, and cowardice together with bountiful heaps of apathy, indifference, and denial are pretty much all I see.

A day of reckoning -- replete with pitchforks -- may very well come . . . one day . . . but I personally do not believe it will. Or -- more precisely -- if it ever arises, it will not be an organic rebellion against the Establishment. Instead, it will likely be something the Establishment foments to use for its own purposes.

And what does it matter in the end? Nothing short of spiritual awakening will suffice. And that will not happen at the level of the masses but at the level of the individual. One person at a time.

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Only Spiritual Beings Have Human Experiences

5/1/2022

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"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

Pierre Teilhard du Chardin's indispensable insight regarding the nature of mortal human experience always springs to mind whenever I find myself contemplating the meaning of "life, the universe, and everything." The insight is incredibly straightforward, which means it is strangely susceptible to being misunderstood.

Those who pursue spiritual aims often regard the material world in which human experience happens as essentially wicked and worthless. As such, the material world and physical human experience must be ruthlessly separated from the spiritual if the spiritual aspect of ourselves is to remain pure, whole, and unsullied.

This appears to be the general attitude of those who adopt the "human beings having spiritual experiences" approach to human existence -- an approach which tends to believe that the divine can only be valued when all that is human about us in this time and place is consciously devalued.

Although this "humans having spiritual experiences" approach to mortal life is vastly superior to a purely materialist/atheistic approach that rejects spiritual reality altogether, I can’t help but feel it misses the mark when it comes to the "reality" of human experience within spiritual reality. It misses the mark by undervaluing and underestimating the role human experience plays in the development of what we truly are -- spiritual beings.

One potential pitfall of the “human beings having spiritual experiences” is the motivation to denigrate lowly, “fallen” human experience in favor of pursuing a higher “spiritual experience” in mortal life. Within this conceptualization, the human being I am and the human experience I am having is devalued against the spiritual being I have – by the grace of God – the potential to become.

The conceptualization itself is not wrong, but it under-emphasizes one key point – we were spiritual beings before we became human beings, are spiritual beings while we are human beings, and will continue to be spiritual beings after we cease being human beings.

Thus, the purpose of human experience does not reside in aspirations to “become” a spiritual being. After all, there is no need to become what one already is.

Which leads to the following open questions: What kind of spiritual being was I before I became a human being? What kind of human experience must I – as a spiritual being – have in order to spiritually learn what I need to learn? What kind of spiritual being will I be when my human experience ends?

We are inherently spiritual beings who have chosen to have a human experience, which implies that the human experience is an infinitely valuable experience for us to have. Yet the value of the human experience is only properly understood if we know the reality of ourselves as spiritual beings.

If we know the reality of ourselves as spiritual beings, we can begin to understand and focus on those aspects of our human experience that will provide the learning we need to become the kind of spiritual beings we wish to be when our human experience ends in physical death.

If we do not know the reality of ourselves as spiritual beings, we run the risk of pursuing the needless spiritual aim of “becoming” a spiritual being instead of aiming to become a more developed spiritual being.

We also run the risk of turning our human experience into some sort of Matryoshka Doll game in which we constantly strive to remove every level of the “inferior” human experience in order to get to some sort of potentially “superior” spiritual experience.

The genius in Du Chardin’s observation rests not only in the awareness of spiritual beings actively having human experiences, but in the recognition that human experience is something that we, as spiritual beings, wanted to have.

Nevertheless, as du Chardin states, the human experience only becomes meaningful if it is lived by human beings who know themselves to be spiritual beings.

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